Before the lights go out
by CrazyAbout
Summary: As Connie plots one final 'Hurrah' she has no reason to kill Ben. Harry is a far bigger prize and he's the one with the memory.
1. Chapter 1

At what was the end of an era, a dreadful sense of finality had settled over the grid, as they struggled to come to terms with the inconceivable. Heads had been kept down, voices to a minimum, working like beavers as a means of distraction from the enormity of what they'd been told.

'Please just leave me alone,' Malcolm had snapped at his mother when she'd popped in to see if he was alright, suggesting that he shouldn't be sitting in his chair at midnight, listening to what she considered to be depressing music. Well she was right he shouldn't be and he'd apologised, but it was becoming a habit which had also seen him having a couple of drinks during the course of each evening. This had been Harry's means of coping and in some way he knew he was doing it to keep his legacy alive. Well it wasn't bloody working was it?

A week had gone by and as usual they'd been ordered to move on, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. But he couldn't, not this time. Harry the only friend that he had, _a traitor_. Never, it was impossible despite his apparent confession. He just couldn't let this lie, he had to speak out, and now before he lost his nerve. He climbed the stairs with a heavy heart and crawled into bed, but with the semblance of a plan to right the wrongs.

 **The following morning**

Ros stood motionless, her head in her hands, the door to her new office fairly reverberating on its hinges, and with it Malcolm's words echoing in her head.

'If it's the last thing I do on God's earth Ros, then by Christ I'll do it.'

The grid on mass fell silent, all eyes on his disappearing back, the only sound being the opening and then closing pods. It was an exit worthy of Harry, except that Harry wasn't there.

* * *

'You idiot,' he berated himself, as the front door closed behind him and he found himself on the steps of Thames House with nowhere else to go, other than back to face the music. Snapping, just because she'd told him she was busy at the moment and could it wait? He'd behaved like a petulant child, his mother would have been mortified. He'd known before he'd gone in there that she was under enormous pressure, fending off the resulting flack while at the same time trying to settle into her new role as section head. What would it take to convince her? Well the first thing he needed was an ally, someone who he could trust, but who _could_ he trust in the present climate? Ben with his feet barely under the table was far too inexperienced and Connie as much as he admired her, had been scathing in her comments about Harry and his long association with the Russians. Jo it had to be then. Dear sweet Jo, who was still mourning the loss of Adam as he was Colin, his only hope of persuading Ros that his plan was viable.

'You know where Ruth is!' came out as a high pitched whisper, when after Malcolm's outburst and subsequent phone call, she'd left the grid on the pretext of meeting an asset. Instead of which, they'd bought themselves a second cup of coffee from a street vendor and were sitting on a bench overlooking the Thames Barrier. She in shock and he now ready to explain his idea that he hoped Ros would run with.

'I haven't always known I promise you Jo, but before Adam died he left me with a letter to be opened in the event of his death.

The letter explained the arrangements that he and Zaf had made at the time of Ruth's exile that they'd kept to themselves.

'I've come up with a plan to help Harry Jo, but in order for it to work we need to get Ruth back.'

'Why?'

'Because more than any of us she knows how to work the system, and besides which I trust her implicitly.'

'And you think Ruth will do this because?'

'Oh come on Jo don't be ridiculous, you and I of all people know how she and Harry felt about each other.'

Jo did, but time had moved on and who was to say that Ruth still felt the same? Added to which, she still wasn't sure how Ros felt about Ruth, despite the passing of years. Still Malcolm had chosen her to confide in, so the least she could do was to listen.

In a nutshell as Malcolm put it, first and foremost they needed to find a way to let Harry know that Ruth was back and helping, which would at least give him a reason for hope. Then, somehow or other which he hadn't yet worked out, he, Ruth and Jo if she was willing, would continue to try and discover the real traitor, job done.

It sounded so simple when in essence it was anything but.

'I need someone to come with me when I talk to Ros that's all,' had Jo saying that 'that's all was far from it.'

To the already _at the end of his tether_ Malcolm, that sounded like a rejection.

'You're not suggesting that you think Harry's guilty are you?'

'Christ no, sorry Malcolm, but I still don't see why you need my help with Ros?'

'Don't be swayed by what you heard earlier, I find her truly terrifying Jo,' he admitted, 'which is why I need you to back me up, when I ask her for time off to go to the States.'

'Ruth's in the States, what the hell's she doing there?' came out with the same look of astonishment and at a similar volume.

Malcolm needed to explain the contents of Adam's letter, though not at this stage show it to Jo.

'With Mace still around, they apparently deemed it unsafe for Ruth to stay in Europe, although they made a pretty good job of convincing Harry and the rest of us that she had. Zaf set her up with a legend and an introduction into Cambridge College, which is attached to one of Boston's many universities.'

'And? asked Jo as Malcolm paused.

'She's still there, teaching English Literature to mature students.

'So Harry's never known where she is?'

'He's tried to trace her believe you me, almost from the beginning, but no he still doesn't know.'

'Christ,' said Jo again.

Two and a half years was a long time and Jo's only other question which Malcolm also knew the answer to, was that no Ruth wasn't in a relationship and she lived on her own.

* * *

'So let me get this right,' Ros asked them two days later, by which time he and Jo had spent the last two evenings together, dotting the i's and crossing the t's to his plan. 'You're proposing that I sanction what amounts to a black op that has a supposed dead woman running it?'

'Yes we are,' said Malcolm, for want of anything better to say.

They'd also plied Ros with the numerous occasions that Harry had bent the rules to help other colleagues. Not they'd needed to, because like them she couldn't conceive that Harry was guilty, despite the fact that she'd been told at the highest level that there was irrefutable proof that he was; although her request as to the nature of the proof had been denied.

'Three things,' she told them in her unmistakable let's get back to business voice. 'If I sanction this then you need to move quickly, because wherever they're holding Harry it won't be for long and after that we'll never find him. You keep this away from the grid until such a time as I find a way to _raise Ruth from the dead_ and it doesn't encroach on any other ops that need to take priority.'

They nodded.

'Go on then,' she added to an impatient Jo, who was waiting to ring Malcolm, five minutes after he got back to his desk.

Far from being angry with Malcolm Ros was secretly impressed by his tenacity and that he wasn't the shrinking violet she'd presumed him to be. Without Harry at the helm she was floundering, akin to trying to swim with your hands tied behind your back. If nothing else this had proved to her that there were at least two members of her staff that she could trust. Loyalty was a rare commodity these days especially at the moment, when as far as she was concerned the whole of five was still under suspicion.

'Malcolm's had to go home,' she announced to the remainder of their colleagues, after he'd disappeared through the pods at the same speed in as many days. 'That was the hospital. It seems that his mother's condition has deteriorated.'

* * *

As Malcolm raced home to pick up his case and say cheerio to his mum, who was sunning herself in their neighbours back garden before they watched countdown together, Tariq Masood was looking forward to his first day on the grid. He'd finished his basic training which he'd passed with flying colours, anticipating that he would be spending years at GCHG until such a time as he could apply for a position at Thames House. Jo's call the previous evening had come as a complete surprise and now with confirmation to say that it was all systems go, he was looking forward to his first day as Malcolm's temporary replacement.

'I hope he enjoys his holiday,' said Malcolm's mum, as much to herself as to her friend Agnes. 'He's been really out of sorts lately, which isn't like my Malcolm.'

* * *

There had been none of the niceties that Harry liked. He knew who he was, for which he was bloody grateful and he also knew that he should have been at Thames House. But why he was here, wherever here was, for what he now calculated must have been close to a week he had no idea, because no one had said a word or answered any of his questions.

His recollections prior to his arrival were at best sketchy. Blurred visions of his children when they'd been young, some sort of holding cell where he'd been stripped naked and then being bundled into a van, were all that he'd so far managed to conjure up. He couldn't even remember putting up a fight which was unusual for him and there wasn't a mark on his body to suggest that he'd been beaten. There didn't seem any point in inviting one either.

The door opened, and the same anonymous face that he saw each morning walked into his room carrying a tray. It was his breakfast, porridge most likely. Not his first choice, but then seemingly he didn't have choices any more. The routine was monotonous in its consistency and a short walk along a darkened corridor to a bathroom always followed breakfast. If his calculations were correct, then his accompanied walk outside around what he'd concluded to be a high walled former garden, happened around mid-morning, followed by lunch, another walk and then dinner such as it was, before a nod from the same anonymous face told him that it was time for bed.

Mind blowing repetitive and torture by silence was the way he'd come to think of it, but crucially he'd forced himself to keep his temper, calculating that eventually someone would realise that this was some terrible mistake and he'd be allowed to go home. Ros seemed the most likely candidate, but why she'd suddenly popped into his mind he had no idea and too much thinking seemed to give him a headache.

'Oh Ruth,' he said, dragging himself off the bed, before bending down to retrieve his porridge.


	2. Chapter 2

'Come on Malcolm you can do this or you'll never forgive yourself and nor will Ruth if she hasn't been given the chance,' had been Jo's response to Malcolm's last minute doubts about dragging Ruth back into their murky little world. She'd been standing with him in the departure lounge with his previous bravado waning, until finally with a huge sigh of relief, she'd watched his departing back as he followed his fellow passengers.

She'd been wonderfully supportive and had helped him plan his itinerary, which if everything went to plan, would see him flying back with Ruth in three days. Ros's insistence that time was of the essence had seen them deciding to making last minute changes, all of which had been arranged whilst he'd gone home to pack. What they'd first planned to be a week's visit had been cut by half, which meant that he had to be decisive rather than waffle when he explained the situation to Ruth. There was nothing about this trip that constituted a holiday he kept telling himself, it could mean life or death for Harry.

During the course of the flight he spent a good deal of time trying to catch up on sleep, whilst imagining how alone and quite probably frightened Ruth must have felt, when for what he still believed had been more a sacrifice to save Harry than section D, she'd forced herself to make this self -same trip alone. He'd been fond of her then and he still was and he was so looking forward to seeing her again. He just wished that it could have been under different circumstances. Now though with less than an hour to go before they were due to land, he was considering not for the first time which was the best way to approach her.

'Only another hour sir, I expect you're starting to get excited,' said the passing stewardess, to the still pensive passenger that she'd kept a careful eye on from the moment that they'd taken off. There was clearly something that was troubling him and this was another attempt to settle what she presumed to be a fit of nerves at the prospect of seeing his sister again after such a long time. Either that or he was worried about the landing that was so often the case with first time flyers, although it seemed unlikely that a man of his years hadn't flown before.

* * *

All things considered Ruth had settled well into her new life. She enjoyed her job tremendously, had developed a good relationship with her students most of whom were in their thirties or forties and in some cases older, and her small flat close to the campus where she worked had eventually begun to feel like home. Now though with the end of the current semester due in a couple of weeks and the long summer recess ahead, the usual dread at the prospect hours without company rose up to greet her. It wasn't as though she hadn't had offers because she had. One particularly persistent student had chatted her up relentless apparently enthralled as he'd put it by her accent, but she'd dismissed him the same way as the others, by telling him that she had someone waiting for her at home.

Over the last couple of years she'd lost count of the number of times that she'd told herself to pull herself together, to bury the memories and the longing. He was never going to come for her, not now, although the want had never got any easier. He must have known where she was, surely he'd have been able to bully Adam into telling him, but seemingly not. What would it take to make her stop loving him and god knows she'd tried, it was hopeless.

* * *

'Hello love, your brother arrived earlier, I hope it was alright to let him in?' the janitor asked her, as she staggered through the door with a huge bag of books to mark and a takeout for her supper, offering to give her a hand with what she was carrying.

'That's kind of you but I'll manage, thank you George,' went against everything that had been drummed into her, as the instinct to be cautious that she'd worn like a protective skin completely deserted her. It was him it had to be. But as she opened her door and the euphoria was replaced by terror, quite how she managed to bluff her way through their happy reunion she had no idea. As soon as she saw him she knew without a single doubt, that the only reason that Malcolm would have flown all this way to see her, was to tell her that Harry was dead.

'Tell me how it happened?' she asked him, as the room swum violently and her legs gave way beneath her, books cascading from her arms in a paper waterfall.

'Idiot,' was directed at himself and his opening salvo of 'Hello Ruth I have something that I need to tell you,' that wasn't at all what he'd planned to say.

'Read this,' he eventually told her after he'd helped her into a chair, praying that she hadn't hurt herself when she'd sunk to the floor in front of him. He was searching desperately for the kettle having handed her Adam's letter and explaining that even now, Harry didn't know where she was.

Ruth felt far from fine, although it had nothing to do with the fact that she'd bashed her knee against the table when she'd disintegrated like a pack of tumbling cards. So if he wasn't dead that meant only one of two things, otherwise Harry would have been standing there himself not Malcolm. Harry was hurt or missing or what? She'd run out of ideas.

'So why are you here Malcolm?' she asked him, snapping and then apologising, when she realised how tired he looked.

It wasn't often that Ruth let her emotions get the better of her and on reflection Malcolm realised for a second time that he could have worded it better, but there really wasn't an easy way to dress up the word treason.

'We _all_ believe he's innocent Ruth I promise you and I hate to drag you into this, but we need your help to prove it, so I'm here to take you back to London.'

'I'm dead Malcolm, I can't go back,' said a now totally shell shocked and disbelieving Ruth, her world seemingly shattered and with tears streaming down her face, with Malcolm at a loss as to how to make it better, but knowing that he still had to find a way to persuade her.

* * *

An hour later, by which time Malcolm had unpacked and a somewhat calmer Ruth had phoned for another take out, this time for two, they were sitting either side of her small kitchen table, with him now ready with a full and what he'd promised her, would be a better explanation.

'It's a large country house where they do what Malcolm?' was her question in response to him telling her that their research pointed to the fact that Harry was being detained at somewhere called Kettlemere, which she'd never heard of.

'It's where they keep high profile prisoners that they don't know what to do with. It gives them breathing space before they to come to a decision.'

'And who exactly are they?' she asked him, as visions of Harry at best being tortured,' seemed to be what Malcolm was inferring.

'It's a security service run institution where the Home Secretary has the ultimate say as to what happens.'

'But that's good isn't it, Blake likes Harry doesn't he, so there shouldn't be a problem should there?' wasn't a question that Malcolm felt that he was able to answer, based on Blake's previous involvement in the Davey King affair.

'Ros is going to talk to him,' said an increasingly weary Malcolm who was already struggling with the time difference, but still trying valiantly to persuade Ruth that for reasons that he had yet to explain, that he needed her to come back with him. This wasn't just about Harry although in his and he knew Ruth's mind it was. It was a twofold plea with Ros's agreement, that they needed Ruth's help in exposing the real traitor.

'Ros?' questioned Ruth, in a voice that he recognised and with a look on her face that he couldn't ignore, as he went on to explain to her, how since Adam's death she'd changed and how Harry had come to rely on her.

If Malcolm had harboured any doubts as to whether or not Ruth would come back to London with him, they were dispelled in that instant. Without even planning it, he had finally found the right words that had metaphorically _poked her with a big stick_. _She_ was the one that Harry had always relied on not Ros, who'd been a snake in the grass in all their eyes until Adam had died.

'I need to pack Malcolm,' she told him, the Ruth Evershed that had been lost until now was back. Terrified as to what she might have to face maybe, but there was that same steeliness in her eyes that he'd always seen there, he needed to call Jo and get her to speak to Ros.

Forty eight hours later when they were once again sitting either side of a table, but this time in a quiet restaurant on the edge of a very large lake, Malcolm took a moment to sum up the last couple of days.

The speed and the efficiency with which she'd organised herself shouldn't have surprised him, but it had. She'd stepped out of what now amounted to normal and back into their world where lying or _bending the truth for the Greater Good_ as Harry preferred to call it to it, came as naturally as breathing. Motivated he knew by her desperate need to see Harry again, but even so, her razor sharp mind and quick thinking had astounded him. For the first time since he'd known her, he recognised the complete package that had drawn her and Harry together. Yes if he really delved into the depths of this mind and tried to imagine them in a _bed scenario,_ then he was sure that it would have been lovely, but it went so much deeper than that. He'd been right all those years ago, they were meant to be together in _every_ sense.

She'd spoken to her landlord and confirmed that she was going on an extended holiday, although with a year's lease she hadn't needed to empty her flat. The university principal had been persuaded to offer her indefinite compassionate leave to deal with what she had described as family crisis involving her parents and she'd left a message for her students, apologising for disappearing without warning and wishing them the best of luck with their continuing studies. Awesome was a word that Malcolm tended not to use, but she was.

* * *

Back in the UK, Jo had just finished cleaning and tidying her flat in preparation for Ruth arriving when her doorbell rang.

'Ros,' she said, hoping that she didn't look as surprised as she felt, having found her _now_ boss standing on her doorstep and proffering a bottle of wine. 'It's nice to see you,' seemed to do the trick, as Ros suggested that if she hadn't already eaten, then maybe they should order a takeaway. As she followed her into the kitchen, she imagined Ros casting an eye around her small and _good enough for her_ abode, that was nothing like the very minimalist and high class flat that Ros lived in, which if the rumours were correct her father had coughed up for. Business or pleasure, she wondered as she reached for the plates and laid the table, inviting Ros to sit down and handing her the corkscrew.

'We need to firm up on how we're going to play this,' came at the end of their first bottle of wine and part way through the takeaway that Ros had insisted she pay for. Up until then their conversation had been pretty much non work related, but as two of section D's less likely bedfellows, they'd struggled to find anything to talk about other than work.

'As far as our colleagues are concerned,' Ros told Jo, 'it needs to be seen as business as usual, which for me it will be, up until such a time that we get Harry out of there.'

'There being Kettlemere, it's been confirmed?'

'Yes, Tariq's done some more digging.'

'What then?'

'Crucially, Harry cannot come back onto the grid and he can't go home either until we find out what's going on and whose behind whatever this is. Whoever they are, they have to be made to believe that Harry's still incarcerated or worse, and that they're free to continue as before.'

'So where's Harry going to stay, not here surely?' Jo asked her, struggling to imagine not only Ruth but Harry living under her roof.

'Use your imagination Jo, Harry and Ruth working together, you couldn't ask for a more effective partnership.'

Jo agreed, but she wasn't sure what Ros meant by partnership and she wasn't about to ask. It was Ros's job to elaborate, not hers to dig into what amounted to personal. She'd done that once before, with what she still considered to be catastrophic consequences.

'What, so a safe house, is that what you're suggesting?'

'Tariq's proving a real asset, he's apparently got some distant relative, with an empty flat that's not far from here.'

'So why not use a safe house?'

Do I have to spell it out thought Ros, her eyebrows stratospheric, well obviously she did.

'Because whoever's behind this has influence and we have no guarantees that they don't know the location of all our safe houses, as I do or Connie for instance.'

One step at a time she went on to tell her, she was going to see the Home Secretary first thing tomorrow morning. Blake's bollocks wouldn't be the first ones that she twisted and she could guarantee that within a couple of weeks that Ruth Evershed would be alive and kicking. Jo didn't doubt it about the bollocks that was, but before that Ruth's main priority had to be to get to see Harry and that little gem as Ros put it, was already in place.

Tariq has been busy thought Jo, as Ros handed her the documents that he'd produced. Harry had acquired a wife, namely Ruth, who nobody other than them, Malcolm and of course Harry would recognise. And after that thought Jo, it would be a case of watch this space, although this time without the prying.

'We have to find the traitor,' Ros said emphatically, bringing her back from the realms of fantasy, 'because until we do, none of us are safe.

Having Ros telling her her that she needed to love her and leave her because she needed to go back to the grid, even though it was close to midnight, Jo closed the door with a sigh of relief. Ruth was due in a couple of hours, she'd be knackered and would need to sleep, but after that Jo was looking forward to the new responsibility that Ros had given her. As a field agent she'd be able to come and go without question and Ros had just told her that she was to be her liaison between Ruth and the grid. She was finally getting her teeth into something that really mattered and would be able to make a difference.

* * *

Had Harry known the full extent of the effort that his colleagues were pouring into getting him released, he would have slept more peacefully. Had he known that he was now a married man and that Ruth was his wife and would be coming to see him the following morning, he quite probably wouldn't have slept at all. But as it was with the same cocktail inside him that he'd been given each and every night, he was restless and fighting his way through a maze of confusion with no end in sight. Bouncing between memories of his time on the grid and the endless missions and losses, the greatest of all he still believed with an unbearable pain was his failure to protect Ruth, he was awash with grief. She'd filled his dreams for years, sad and burnt out though he believed himself to be. He'd been captivated by her almost from the beginning and had let her go when he should have moved heaven and earth to keep her. Well it was too late now, she was lost to him, he was watching her sail away.

* * *

Now sleeping peacefully, with no such doubts in their minds, Connie's associates had had a very productive evening.

Central London brought to a standstill and the far reaching consequences was a delicious prospect and their counterparts in section D having been side tracked and apparently accepting Harry's guilt without question, was a bonus. Another couple of weeks and they could fly home and Connie with them, but before that they had work to do and it started tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

Weary and worn he certainly was, but he was also elated. Running on pure adrenalin, he'd successfully completed what for him had amounted to a mission and Ruth was safely home. Despite the fact that it was almost two in the morning when they were standing in Jo's kitchen, he chose to go home.

'You might want to take this with you Malcom,' she'd told him, handing him the message that Ros had left.

Now five hours later, trying to ignore the fact that Ruth and Jo were sitting on the other side of the room, he retrieved the message from his pocket and took a deep breath.

'I trust that you're questioning my authority young man?' he said in a now well - practiced authoritative voice to whoever had answered the phone at Kettlemere, saying that he was ringing from the Home Office to confirm that Harry Pearce's detention had been rescinded, and that in less than an hour, his wife and her brother would be arriving to take him home.

'I can assure you that they'll have all the appropriate documentation and have my full authority,' he continued. 'However,' he said for effect and with a pause, 'if you have any doubts, then I'm more than happy to transfer you to the Home Secretary, although that will require me to pull him out of a meeting.'

The voice at the other end declined the offer. He'd been on duty since seven in the morning when he'd taken over from the night shift and had already spent an interminably long week, looking after what had been this unusually passive prisoner. Most of his previous charges had screamed blue murder that they'd been innocent, whereas this man whoever he was, had been docile to a fault.

'Don't underestimate yourself Malcolm,' Jo told him, when he commented that everything was so much easier over the phone and he really wasn't cut out for this.

'You say that we'll need to arrive there around eleven and that Harry will be in the garden,' Ruth asked her again, mostly for her own benefit, having refused point blank to go there on her own, and quite rightly so Ros had confirmed.

'It'll be fine, stop worrying both of you,' Jo told them, ignoring the fact that neither of them had been trained as field officers. As Ros had pointed out, there was no one else they could trust, it had to be them.

With Jo now heading back to the grid they had an hour to fill, with what Malcolm assumed might be a lot of confidence building, until Ruth confessed that she'd done pretty much the self-same thing on another occaision. This time though Harry wouldn't be lying in bed with his eyes closed having had a bullet removed from his shoulder, he'd be sitting next to her with what Malcolm presumed would be a look of pure joy on his face. That done or mission accomplished whichever way you liked to look at it, his instructions were to drive them to their supposed marital home, where Ruth's priorities were to find out what had happened to Harry and why?

* * *

The fact that Harry had virtually no memory as to how he'd come to be there or why wasn't apparent, until with slightly faltering footsteps, Ruth walked the full length of the garden towards his slumped figure and sat down beside him.

'Ruth,' was as far as he got before he disintegrated, partly due to his total inability to piece anything together, combined with the shock of seeing her. His nightmare filled night had resulted in him cutting himself shaving and the fact that there was no sign of his usual companion convinced him that he was having some sort of hallucination.

Whatever had happened to him whether physical or mental she had no idea, but he was clinging to her hands like a vice and asking her where they were?

Due to the state he was in, it didn't take a genius to realise that their original plan to get him out of there with a smile on his face wasn't going to be an option, and as he was holding her hands that there was every chance that he'd feel her wedding ring, which knowing Harry would only add to her problems.

Motioning to the already advancing Malcolm, she mustered all the strength that she had and dragged him to his feet.

'Come on Harry we're going for a drive,' she told him, her prime objective to keep him calm no matter what happened. With his arms now draped around their shoulders and theirs around his not inconsiderable bulk, they somehow managed to manoeuver him back into the house.

'This is not at all what I was lead to expect, my husband's clearly been mistreated, you'll be hearing from the Home Secretary,' she told his guard, in a voice that she barely recognised as her own, as they walked without stopping towards the car.

Once they reached the flat and after two cups of strong coffee and a jab in his bum by the services doctor, to counteract whatever he'd concluded had been pumped into Harry, he slowly became more lucid, although quite where Ruth had materialised from or why she was sitting beside him and holding his hand, he had no idea.

'With the nightmares and headaches you've been experiencing, I would suggest that they've been drugging you for days,' said the cheery doctor, who after years of trying, had, in a purely medical sense, finally had his hands on Harry's body.

The only explanation that he could come up with as to Harry's loss of work related memory, was that it was as a result of what he described to them as accumulated trauma that had been building for years. Even drip feeding him information in an effort to get him to remember could prove damaging, so they needed to be patient. The fact that he knew who Ruth and Malcolm were was apparently positive and indicated that hopefully sooner rather than later, that things would get back to normal.

'Complete rest and absolutely _no_ stress whatsoever, that's what you need old son, and with any luck it'll be days rather than weeks,' he told him.

Ros who had been sitting in her office and waiting for news, prayed that whatever influence Ruth had over Harry was as good as Jo suggested, because they didn't have weeks, and without their combined input she didn't want to contemplate the outcome. Accumulated trauma she found totally credible, she'd only been doing Harry's job for a couple of weeks, and she was already struggling to sleep.

* * *

'Right then folks I'll love you and leave you, I'll pop in tomorrow,' Malcolm told Harry who had finally fallen asleep on the sofa and a less than confident Ruth who was beginning to weigh up the ramifications of actually living as well as working under the same roof as Harry. The phrase _never mix business with pleasure_ wasn't helping, as she looked across at the man who she'd believed she'd never see again and wondered how she was going to explain to him, that for the purposes of this op, that they were married.

First things first she told herself, she needed a cup of tea and then have a look around.

The flat was marginally larger than the one she'd left behind in Boston. God was it only less than thirty six hours ago since they'd left, it already felt like a lifetime? Jo she presumed had provided the well stocked the fridge. She knew that she had to get past this Ros thing, but somehow she couldn't picture her in a kitchen. As she padded from room to room she found the fully equipped office which had a direct and secure line to Tariq, whoever he was. A technical genius apparently who Ros wanted to keep, despite the fact that Malcolm was now going back to work. So many new faces in such a short space of time and amongst them and the real reason that she'd been brought back was a traitor.

Come on Ruth she told herself as she headed towards what she now knew must be the two bedrooms and a bathroom. This was purely business, except that it wasn't, was it? She'd left the UK to save Harry and now she was back for exactly the same reason. Everything that she'd imagined her life could be was resting within these four walls. She just needed to find a way to deal with it.

If there was a positive to be found in this new situation in which they found themselves, then it was that in the short term their conversations couldn't be about work. Amongst all the questions that he asked her, there was one that she knew she couldn't deny him an honest answer. It came when they were on their way to bed, at the end of what had been a traumatic and difficult day for both of them. Having confronted the subject of their sleeping arrangements with a great deal of hesitation on both their parts, Ruth finally conceded that Harry was being a gentleman, by offering her the larger of the two rooms.

'Ruth,' he pleaded in the same hushed voice, that she'd last heard on the day that she'd kissed him.

'Of course I do,' she told him, when he asked her if she knew what he'd wanted to say, until just as she had then, she turned and left him standing.

Weary and ready for a decent night's sleep that wouldn't involve nightmares, Harry undressed and climbed into bed. Still none the wiser as to why they were here was enough for now. As for how she felt, well he already knew the answer to that question, he'd seen it in her eyes when she'd said _Of course I do._ There was no rush, he just needed to patient as had always been the case with Ruth.

Ruth at the other end of the corridor was also lying in bed, but _her_ mind unlike his was at sixes and sevens. She was the boss in the short term and needed to take control, until such a time as Harry regained his memory. But how was she supposed to cope with what was bound to happen again and not respond? It had taken every ounce of her will power to turn away rather than to kiss him. Living under the same roof day and night was a battle that she'd never had to face, but for as long as it took for them to unveil the traitor, she had to try.

Having made an attempt to avoid bumping into Harry on her way to the bathroom the following morning, she'd pulled on her dressing gown and slippers and padded into the kitchen just before seven. He needed to sleep the doctor had told them, whereas she needed a strong cup of tea and to check whether she'd had any overnight messages from Tariq.

'Sorry,' he said, when she nearly jumped out of her skin having found him sitting at the kitchen table with what was apparently his second mug of coffee and a pot of tea already made for her, because he'd heard her get out of bed and walk to the bathroom. Her dressed in pyjamas and a dressing gown and him similarly clad but without the slippers, wouldn't have been a problem had it been Malcolm. But this wasn't Malcolm it was Harry, and in a situation that for years she'd imagined them to be.

'I have to work,' she said, thanking him for the tea, her hand vaguely waving in the direction of the door and her voice such as it was, much higher than normal.

'That's fine Ruth, go ahead, I'll bring toast,' was said to her fleeing back and with a huge smile on his face. He hadn't made a mistake last night, this was progress with a capital P.

According to Tariq there was absolutely no way that anyone could hack into any of his messages, so Ruth wasn't surprised to see that rather than call her there was one waiting.

Most importantly it said, they'd had confirmation from the doctor that the drug that had been administered to Harry would have no long term side effects and he was still confident that within a few days that he'd regain his memory. This being the case, Ros had given her the OK to tell Harry that they had footage of him being carried from his house and driven in an ambulance to Kettlemere by two as yet unidentified persons. After that there was no evidence as to what had happened whilst he'd been there.

What she wasn't to tell Harry at this stage was that he'd been accused of treason, which having finally been given the evidence that she'd asked for, Malcolm had proved to be a very elaborately put together fake. Someone within the service had gone to an awful lot of trouble to keep Harry away from the grid, but as yet they had no idea who.

Ros says dig as deep as you can and Jo will be in touch, ended the message and with it the door opening.

'I'm not an idiot Ruth, I'll do what the doctor said,' he told her, arriving with a plate of toast and a second cup of tea. 'I do however have some more questions and after that you can do whatever it is you're here to do and as difficult as it is, I'll stay out of your way for the moment. I'm assuming that we're both housebound for whatever reason, otherwise I'd quite like to go for a walk?'

Put like that she realised how confused he must be, most of all as to why she was there, so turning off her computer she turned around to face him.

'You do you trust me Harry don't you?'

'You know I do.'

'Well then please listen and don't interrupt, because this isn't going to be easy.'

'I'm listening.'

'This, whatever it is between us, has to be put to one side until after this is op is over.'

He waited, unusually for him.

Now brace yourself she thought, for what she knew was likely to put a look of barely disguised hope on his face.

'Having said that, about us I mean, you're right we can't leave the flat, and for the purposes of this op we have to pretend to be married Harry.'

Married brought back the grin and a not unreasonable response.

'That's a bit of a contradiction isn't it?'

She didn't want to tell him, or more importantly admit too herself that their being married had been the lever to get him released and justification for them living together. Was there an age limit to falling in love with someone she thought not, so instead she asked him what he was thinking, which in Harry's case, amounted to lighting the blue touch paper.

'What do I _think_?' he asked her, knowing full well that she knew the answer and that they were back to their well practised game.

'This is serious Harry, you could still be in danger and I'm supposed to be dead,' was an attempt to bring him back down to earth, if only for a minute.

Listen to yourself, do you honestly believe that I don't understand that, he wanted to shout at her but didn't. They weren't on the grid, constrained by what they said and with dozens of people watching them, he'd waited years for a chance like this.

He meant what he'd said, he told her, he wasn't a fool and if he had this accumulated trauma and his long turm health was a stake, then he'd do whatever it took to get better. He trusted Ros implicitly and if she'd deemed it important enough to persuade her to come back, then he'd accept whatever was asked of him, even if it meant him taking a back seat. Having said that, he was tired and done with battling and arguing. They'd been thrown the lifeline of a future together, so when this op was over they'd have this conversation again, and when they did, _he didn't expect her to walk away._

* * *

Back on the grid, Ros had called Jo into her office. With no progress as to who out of the dozens of staff that worked for them was a mole or traitor, call it what you like, she was considering using Ben in a more progressive way.

'Connie concerns me,' she told Jo, 'she's asked me virtually every day whether we've got any news about Harry and even though they've known each other for years and are friends, I sense there's more than just a friendly interest in her questions.'

'Ben, yes I'm sure he's more than capable,' Jo told her, when Ros suggested that she wanted to have Connie tailed, although she was finding it hard to envisage that Connie was involved in what was going on.

Malcolm was even more surprised having known Connie for years, but like the others had started to accept that perhaps there was more to Ros than he'd first thought and that he needed to trust her instinct. Harry had been right in making her section chief and in his absence and under very difficult circumstances, she had certainly got the team pulling together.

Put a tracker on her had been his suggestion, but as Ros had rightly pointed out, this was Connie that they were talking about and if she found it, which she would, then any chance of them discovering what was going on would be lost.

'It will mean much longer hours, Connie barely leaves the office during the day,' Ros told Ben, 'I need to be absolutely sure that you're ready for this?'

He'd been with the service for the best part of a year, his indoctrination being in the safe house that Harry owned and where Connie had ordered him to strip. He hadn't liked her then and not because of the way she'd spoken to him, it was more than that, something about her that he hadn't yet been able to explain. Maybe his instincts were better than he'd so far been given credit for. He was certainly up for the challenge.

'Here's the final piece of your kit,' Malcolm told him, having armed him with a camera the size of a pin head that he was wearing in a newly acquired ring, whilst pinning a small communications device under his lapel that would be linked to the grid. 'If Tariq's not here it will automatically transfer to wherever he is day or night, but be careful, Connie's not one to be easily fooled.'

And we still don't have proof that it's her, was said to himself.


	4. Chapter 4

Leaning back in what until recently had been Harry's chair, Ros closed eyes in what was a desperate attempt to make some sense out of what was going on. Did it ever stop, seemingly not? What had Harry once said about lying? Not to each other. For years she'd managed to avoid taking work home, even in her head and she'd _never_ touched a drop of whisky. But in this current situation with so little progress, she was rapidly heading towards both, as her new office with its dark red walls and constant interruptions became claustrophobic and uninviting, whilst her appreciation of Harry's worth increased tenfold.

With the sole purpose of keeping Connie and whoever else might be involved, out of the loop, she'd instructed what remained of her core staff, eager and fresh faced as babies, to behave as though whatever they were doing was inconsequential and boring, when it fact it was far from it.

'Leave Connie to me,' she'd told them, with less confidence than she'd been feeling.

If she was involved in whatever was being planned, then sooner rather than later they needed her to make a mistake, so between them, she and Jo had devised a plan to draw her out.

Her phone rang, when did it not, disturbing her train of disjointed thoughts.

'Ben,' she said, knowing that she needed to sound positive and hopeful.

'I'm right behind her,' he told her, 'you have less than five minutes before Connie will be walking back onto the grid.'

Having followed her from work the previous evening, she'd gone straight home, he'd spent the night in his car watching the house and now this morning she'd taken him on a circuitous route to a dental practice just off the Kings Road.

'Has she seen you at any time?'

'I really don't know Ros,' was his honest assessment.

'Meeting room now,' she barked, and she didn't mean after they'd finished the latest cup of coffee that they were enjoying.

The ancillary staff kept their heads down, as the core staff did as they'd been ordered by appearing to be suitably chastised.

'Right we don't have long,' she told them, going on to explain what Ben had said, and that before she'd come onto the grid she'd been to the Home Office to see Nicholas Blake.

'Until I tell him otherwise, he's agreed to tell anyone who enquires about Harry's whereabouts, that he's still in custody.'

'Can we trust him?' Jo asked her,

'God knows, but we have to for the moment,'

'And what about Ruth, did you mention her?' asked Malcolm.

'Remember _everything_ that I tell you stays within these four walls, but no, for the moment I intend keeping Ruth where she is. She's safe, whereas if we bring her back onto the grid and something happens, then I don't think I need to spell out the consequences.'

'Sorry I'm late have I missed anything?' Connie asked them, bundling through the door with all the appearances of having had dental treatment.

'Well personally I'd like to continue searching for Harry, but seemingly we've got more important things to do,' said a disgruntled Malcolm, as Jo put her hand on his arm and suggested he should leave it, before he dug an even bigger hole.

One out of the four pairs of eyes that were looking at him believed him, or at least they hoped she did.

Half an hour later during which time they'd returned to their desks, Tariq headed in the direction of Ros's office on the pretext of having uncovered some intel that needed further investigation. It required someone going to meet a one - time asset of Harrys and by sending Connie they would be allowing her freedom away from the grid.

'I'd go myself but with such an inexperienced staff I really need to stay here,' Ros told her, handing her the details and the location.

* * *

With Connie now heaven know where and a tired Ben, she hoped keeping up with her without being discovered, she turned her attention to her new section chief.

'Go and see them and find a way to talk to Ruth alone. I hate having to side line Harry like this, but you know what the doctor said. Tell her that I want her to look into Connie's past and see what she can dig up, and if she asks to see her personal file then here, give it to her.'

'But surely that's against the rules?'

'Who's to know and it's not as though we have time, just do it Jo?'

'And what if I can't side line Harry as you put it?'

'Then use your persuasive powers and get Ruth to do it.'

Easier said than done she thought, as she climbed the short flight of steps to the double fronted doors and punched in the key code that allowed her access. Whatever she'd expected it wasn't this, as she walked down the carpet covered corridor in the direction of flat three. Garden flat said her instructions, turn left. As far as she was concerned Harry was still the boss, whereas she was a young field officer who'd been plummeted up the ranks into a position which up until now she'd felt comfortable with. With the file in question clutched tightly inside her jacket, she glanced left and right and then rang the bell.

'Joanne,' said the man that she hadn't seen for the best part of two weeks, stepping to one side and letting her in, then ushering her into the sitting room and telling her to take a seat. While he called Ruth, Jo took a moment to take in the surroundings. In the years that she'd known Harry, she'd never seen him other than in a work situation or on an occasional trip to the George and never in casual clothes. Yet here he was, supposedly at home with his wife, dressed in casual trousers and a pale green sweater. Add that to the fact that he appeared to be totally relaxed, just wasn't Harry. Suffering from accumulated trauma, she'd imagined him to be quiet, morose even, but he was far from it. Maybe this wasn't going to be as difficult as she'd expected?

She didn't have long to wait as Ruth appeared almost immediately.

'Before you tell me why you're here and before you ask,' Ruth said to her questioning face, 'Harry and I are fine, so let's just get on shall we.'

Jo wanted her to elaborate but she had a job to do and having brought them both a cup of coffee, Harry had disappeared into the tiny garden.

Having never met Connie, Ruth knew that she needed to keep an open mind, but as she and Jo went through her file together, she began to realise what an intertwined working relationship she and Harry had once shared. It indicated a lifetime of joint missions in Ireland, Cologne and Berlin, that had in most cases run into weeks. As far as their ages were concerned they were within years of each other and as that thought lingered, the same old uncertainties that had raised their head when Juliet Shaw had marched onto the grid, started to grow. If it was Connie that they were looking for, could it be that this was revenge built on rejection, rather than something far greater? She needed to talk to Harry and said so, her concerns evident by her expression.

'Ros says that it's up to you how you play this, but you have to remember what the doctor said about Harry's frame of mind,' a disbelieving Jo told her, wondering how on earth, Ruth who was looking at a photograph of Connie, could possibly imagine Harry ever fancying her. She was old fashioned whereas Harry wasn't.

In all truth she probably didn't, as she got back to business and told Jo that Harry had agreed to sit this one out and let her get on with it.

So they'd had that discussion, which gave her the opportunity to metaphorically open the can.

'For what it's worth Ruth I've worked with Connie for nearly two years and believe you me she _really_ isn't Harry's type. She's brittle and spikey and not a bit like you,' was her setting herself up for a Ruth type tongue lashing which came with real fire in Ruth's eyes.

'And Juliet Shaw, how would you have described her?' brought more images to Jo's mind, non of which she wanted to linger, so she settled on what she hoped sounded like humour which Ruth might agree with.

'A conniving self - centred bitch?' she suggested, which brought the semblance of a smile to Ruth's face. But this conversation was becoming counter - productive and she needed to get Ruth to refocus and back on track.

'Hear me out,' she told her, 'and then if you still want to have this ridiculous conversation with Harry or bite my head off, I won't try and stop you.'

Ruth nodded.

'We've all missed you Ruth, but none more than Harry and I know it's not my place to say this, but we're more than colleagues Ruth, we're friends aren't we?' brought another nod and a look of acknowledgement from Ruth's now softening blue eyes. 'You know as well as I do Ruth that Harry's in love with you, he always was, so let's get back to the here and now shall we and treat Connie as a suspect?'

Predictably she got the non - reply that she was expecting as Ruth went back into work mode, but she'd said her piece, she'd laid the foundation for a similar conversation at another time.

'So what are we looking for?' Ruth asked her.

By lunchtime they'd pulled Connie's life apart but were no further forward to connecting her to any current plot. When Ros called to say that she'd returned to the grid complaining that the asset hadn't turned up and she could have been better employed at her desk, all but Ruth were wavering. Putting the personal to one side, spies like Connie didn't just sit back, Harry was testament to that.

'Ruth,' came from nowhere making them both jump, as the subject of their earlier conversation appeared behind them.

'We need to concentrate Harry,' came from Ruth,

'Yes but you also need to eat, it's lunchtime, so come on both of you, take a break,' was said in a voice that really cared, which Jo acknowledged.

* * *

By the time that they'd reached the table the atmosphere had lightened and Jo was trying hard not to smile. She'd seen Harry's hand ghost its way across Ruth's back and then quickly withdraw, presumably for her benefit, when he'd lent past her to pick up the plate of sandwiches that they were now enjoying. It was rare that she found time to stop for lunch and seldom away from the grid, but with Ros's permission to stay there for the rest of the day to help Ruth, she was making the most of the opportunity to feel normal for a change. Despite Ruth's reluctance to say anything, she was sure that something had happened between them, but whether it was monumental enough to warrant the front pages she had no idea. It seemed unlikely knowing them, but they'd survived a heart breaking separation and to keep them both safe, had been forced to live together. Surely someone in their line of work deserved to survive for long enough to be happy, so why not them?

* * *

Despite his promise to Ruth, Harry had convinced himself that being kept in the dark was equally stressful. He'd also been thinking. For Ros to have deemed it important enough to bring Ruth back, surely there must be a far bigger motive that went beyond rescuing him? Ruth was brilliant with a mind second to none, but when it came to sharing the moment when she realised that she'd solved a problem, he couldn't quite get past the fact that he'd be the one that she'd want to share it with. To achieve what he wanted, which was to stop twiddling his thumbs and be allowed to work alongside Ruth, Ros was the one that he needed to convince, so what would he be doing if he was in her position? He'd go back to the beginning. Maybe she had but it was worth asking the question, and with the end of the afternoon approaching and Jo surely set to go back to the grid, it felt like a good time.

'I know what I said Ruth, but I've been thinking,' followed her, 'What are you doing in here Harry?' When he interrupted what she and Jo were discussing by sitting down next to her.

'I'm not expecting you to tell me what this is all about,' had seen her closing down her computer screen, 'but if it was up to me, I'd pay a surprise visit to Kettlemere,'

got her attention.

'Why?'

'Because it's a starting point and you might find the link to whatever you're searching for.'

Ruth had stopped looking exasperated and was staring at him, acknowledging that he might be right, as Jo pulled out her phone and left the room.

Ros would be with them at seven she told her, and she'd bring the wine.

* * *

So for the second time in as many days, Jo found herself opening a door to a tired looking Ros. There could be no takeaway delivery this time, anonymity was crucial, and as Ros disappeared into the sitting room to talk to Harry, she headed into the kitchen to help Ruth prepare whatever it was they were going to eat. It almost felt normal, like a bunch of friends getting back together after a long time, but it wasn't and she was back to feeling like the underling.

'Dinner's nearly ready,' from Ruth, was followed by the inevitable 'it's so good to have you back,' from Ros, as she and Jo were sitting at the table. She was ravenous having not eaten since breakfast, so before they got down to business, she really needed to eat. Idling the time away while she waited, the first thing she noticed was that Ruth was still wearing her wedding ring. She and Harry weren't putting on a performance, there wasn't an audience to play too, and after only a few days together they looked totally at ease, pottering around in the kitchen as though they owned it. Two years they'd been separated, she envied them their resilience and their apparent certainty, but with it came the terrifying realisation that being the boss, it rested on her shoulders to keep them safe.

'I can't take Jo with me as much as I'd like to,' she told Harry, when they'd gone back through to the sitting room and left Ruth and Jo clearing the plates from the table at the end of their meal. He'd told her that she'd need to be careful when they made an impromptu visit to Kettlemere and as Jo was her section chief, which he approved of by the way, that she was the obvious choice.

'Well Connie then,' was his predictable response, to which Ros lied and said she had her tied up on something else.

Malcolm was out of the question for obvious reasons and Harry couldn't argue with Ros's assessment, that because Ben had been out on surveillance for the past two nights, he wouldn't be at his best. Quite who he'd been watching Ros hadn't elaborated and that had him wondering, although he didn't say so. That only left Tariq which wasn't ideal, but short of going to another section and asking for help which neither of them wanted, it was him that they settled on.

'Find a suit before tomorrow morning,' were Ros's instructions down the phone.

* * *

With two taxis ordered, Ruth was saying her final goodbyes in the hall with Harry already on his way to bed.

'We can't keep lying to him,' she told Ros in a hushed voice, 'you know Harry, he'll go ballistic when he finds out and besides I don't want to.'

'Then tell him,' she told her, with a knowing nod that had Ruth realising that it was pointless her pretending that her relationship with Harry didn't extend beyond work. It just left her with the dilemma as to how to do it, without Harry descending into meltdown.

Closing and bolting the door behind her, she abandoned any idea of returning to the kitchen to wash up. Until Ros had been to Kettlemere tomorrow, any other investigation was pretty much on hold, so she could do it then. Walking quietly down the hall in the direction of the bathroom, she'd made up her mind to talk to Harry tomorrow morning when they would both be less tired, until the bathroom door opened and Harry appeared with a large question mark in his eyes.

'When are you going to explain to me what's really going on?' he asked her, halting her progress to bed and every sensible answer to his question.

Everything she had ever been taught was telling her that this should wait until the morning, but his eyes were holding hers to the point that she couldn't move. Trauma or not, whatever she said could go one of two ways and more importantly define their future. She hadn't personally lied to him, the others had, but this was Harry and she wasn't quite sure that he'd see it like that.

'I need to,' she said, nodding towards the bathroom that he had just exited.

'I'll see you in a minute then,' he told her, opening the door to his bedroom and disappearing inside.


	5. Chapter 5

Idiot, what in God's name had possessed him, was he insane, virtually ordering her to come into his bedroom?

Perhaps in mitigation he'd been encouraged by the fact that whether she'd been acting or not, Ruth had seemed so totally relaxed throughout dinner which wasn't at all like her, until he'd chanced his arm and then with five words had blown it. Well so much for him agreeing with her that until this op was over, that they needed to keep their relationship professional, and as for him once telling her that self control and self denial was what kept them together, it was complete bollocks.

To some extent he'd been irked by Ros, insisting that she needed to keep him in the dark, but she'd been doing as she'd been told, trying to protect his supposed fragile state. So why the hell couldn't he accept it? The answer was simple, well at least it was to him. He was spook through and through and now that he was starting to feel better, it wasn't as easy as he'd imagined it to be to take a back seat.

But back to the matter in hand and how to drag himself out of this mess that he was in. It wasn't as though they'd even discussed why she'd come back. What had she actually said to him 'we have to keep this whatever it is between us Harry on hold,' and as far as she was concerned 'whatever it is' meant what? It all sounded good in theory but in practice it was virtually impossible. In the space of a few days he'd gone from hell to heaven, and heaven in this case had just happened to be sleeping on the other side of the wall.

'I'm making tea, do you want one?' indicated that she was at least still speaking to him as he said yes please and then tried to decide what he'd actually say to her when she eventually opened his door. He was sitting in his pyjamas leaving little to the imagination, having left his dressing gown behind the bathroom door, but as Ruth tended not to knock, he didn't dare risk stripping off and getting back into his clothes in case she walked in. She he presumed would be fully clothed. Was he allowed to think unfortunately?

Ruth didn't want a cup of tea she was buying herself time as she tried to make up her mind as to what if anything Harry was going to say, or better still might happen. Despite having told him that they needed to keep their relationship on hold, it really wasn't working. So to have spent the last few days tip towing around each other, as though if they touched they'd cause an earthquake, when she'd left a perfectly good job and flown what felt like a million miles to be with him, was ridiculous. They'd stood on that bloody quayside and shared a kiss that had sustained her for the best part of two years and protecting him or not, it wasn't as though someone was going to rush through the door and drag him away from her, no one knew where he was. The expression comfort shag briefly filtered through her mind, but she and Harry were more than that to each other. Now all she had to do was decide how best to open his door with two mugs of tea in her hands and not ruin an opportunity, because at what would be well past her bedtime in any other circumstances, she didn't want to start their conversation with, 'you know Connie better than I do Harry, do you think there's a possibility that she might be a traitor?'

As the air between them got thinner and reached the point where if one or the other of them didn't say something soon, then either she or he would say something stupid and bring an end to this late night opportunity, Ruth found her voice.

'I'm not prepared to talk about work at one in the morning Harry,' went a long way to boosting his confidence, as she finally put their two mugs of tea on his bedside table. If she wasn't going to talk about work then presumably it was something else, but rather than doing the sensible thing by waiting to find out, he interrupted her by suggesting she should sit down.

But in the smaller of the two rooms which presumably had been designed for a child, the only chair was small, so her only option was to sit on the side of his bed. It wasn't as though he could budge up and make any space for her, the bed was way too small. She should never have allowed him to talk her into having the larger room, it was ridiculous.

Well she'd delivered his tea and hadn't run, but she'd stopped talking, and he still felt it necessary to apologise.

'Look if I've made you feel uncomfortable Ruth, then I'm truly sorry. I shouldn't have said what I did,' clarified that he wasn't talking about their close proximity which she was enjoying.

Ruth found herself smiling. Harry was truly struggling, whereas she for once wasn't.

'What's so funny?'

'It's this bed, it's so small.'

'Well you try sleeping in it,' Christ he'd done it again.

How much more encouragement did she need to give him, she was sitting within inches of him, her breathing as laboured as his? But this was Harry and as he continued to flounder in a sea of indecision, she threw him a much needed lifeline. Combining loving Harry with work might not always be easy, but time was more important and that was only infinite until the day you died.

'You owe me a kiss,' she told him.

It was a sad indictment to a human life, that since his divorce from Jane and the virtual loss of his children, that Harry could count on one hand, the number of times when he'd _really_ smiled. But with those four simple words, that in the end had been so easy for Ruth to say, he smiled as wide as the ocean that she'd crossed to be with him. Despite the fact that his body was telling him otherwise, he knew that tonight wasn't the moment to take this any further than the kiss that she'd suggested. They were both tired, wired like coiled springs and stressed, and if and when he made love to Ruth, he wanted it to be absolutely sure that when they eventually left this flat, that she wouldn't be on the first plane back to the States, unless he was with her. The pain the last time he'd barely coped with, if it happened again it would finish him.

* * *

The following morning, leaving Jo in charge on the grid with strict instructions to keep Connie busy, Ros picked Tariq up at eight.

'Alpha one report,' said Malcom's voice from the archives, where he settled himself down away from the grid and with a direct link to Ros. He remembered only too well how he'd felt when he and Ruth had arrived at Kettlemere, bluffing their way past the guard at the door, both as nervous as each other, whereas Ros could pull anything off and not blink an eyelid.

'On our way alpha three, plenty of traffic on the road this morning so progress is slower than expected. Tell mother we'll be arriving later than planned would you.'

The approach to Kettlemere was as imposing to Ros as it had been to Malcolm and Ruth, although in the sense of wow, so this is what we pay our taxes for. With Tariq in tow, his instructions were to stick to her like glue, his role a purely technical, to gain as much evidence as they could, whilst posing as inspectors from the County Planning Department, making preliminary visits to large country houses, where the owners had applied for a grant to improve the sanitary conditions.

Their arrival outside the house where there should have been multiples of cars, wasn't what Ros had expected, as Tariq gathered his equipment together and followed close on her heels towards the front door. Armed with information given to them by Malcolm, she knew that the walled garden where they'd rescued Harry was at the back, but this wasn't what was uppermost on her mind at the moment. The place felt deserted which suggested that it had been abandoned, and that concerned her.

'Alpha three, when you came here, how many cars were there apart from yours?' she asked him.

'One from memory, plus a van,'

'Which indicated what Malcolm?'

He paled inwardly as he realised his mistake and the reason for Ros's question. Harry must have been the only person that was being kept there, so whoever had set him up would know that he'd gone.

'Contact the Home Secretary and get the names of the regular guards, but keep Harry and Ruth out of this just for the moment,' Ros told him.

The back of the house revealed nothing more than the front in terms of there being anyone around as Ros and Tariq let themselves in. Finding where Harry had been kept was their top priority and then after that, getting as much evidence as they could before heading back to the grid. Making their way past the main staircase which according to Harry he'd been escorted on his twice daily walks, they found a warren of small corridors that lead to what appeared to have once been the servant's quarters. The kitchen lay silent, but there was evidence of recent occupancy all of which Ros nodded to Tariq to photograph. One by one Ros opened the doors, nothing, the rooms were empty and devoid of furniture, until at the far end of the corridor they found what they were looking for. But it wasn't the bed, the crude wash basin and toilet that was holding their attention. It was the lifeless figure that was dangling at the end of a rope.

'Get a soco team down here now,' Ros yelled at Malcolm. What had Mace once said, 'you're all in this together?' Well depending on how high up this went and with no cctv to prove otherwise, it could be made to appear that Harry had escaped unaided. In which case, someone was going to extreme lengths to have him framed not only for treason but for murder, which wasn't only an affront to Harry, but the section as a whole, who had seemingly abandoned him believing him to be guilty. What was the best way to kill a tree? Chop it off at the roots and as far as section D was concerned, Harry was the bedrock that made it tick. Whoever was doing this didn't just have a grudge against Harry, it was the whole section that was being targeted and this changed everything.

'Check everywhere Tariq, every bloody inch of this house and then we need to get back to London and I'm going to have a serious talk with the Home Secretary,' Ros told him.

Telling herself that by driving too fast and getting them both killed or inducing a heart attack was a pretty dumb idea, she dropped Tariq off at Thames house, asking him to brief both Jo and Malcolm, and then however long it took them, they were to piece together everything that they'd found.

'Lock her in a bloody cupboard, I don't know, use your initiative,' was in response to him asking her what they were supposed to do with Connie. She was going to talk to Harry and Ruth before she went barging in to see the Home Secretary and if soco came up with anything, or the list of guards that Malcolm had requested came through, then they were to call her immediately.

She was totally out of her depth, she needed extra staff and without Harry being there, it was pointless her going back onto the grid. So please god Jo was right and he'd feel well enough to help her sort out this mess.

* * *

They hadn't been expecting to see anyone until much later in the day, so despite Ruth's unexpected downturn in mood which was confusing him, Harry was just about to broach the subject of her time away and whether she was considering going back, when the front door bell rang. Faced with Ros without an audience, Ruth saw for the first time the lack of certainty that had always been Ros's overcoat, when she told her that she presumed that she wanted to talk to Harry.

'Both of you, but I need to have a word with you first,' really surprised Ruth. Ros had never deferred to her, in fact she'd been dismissive of almost everyone and the way that she'd spoken to Harry when they'd come back from Havensworth, was something that had stayed with her and still rankled.

'Coffee?' she suggested, as Ros followed her into the kitchen, bypassing the lounge where Harry was relaxing with his feet up in front of the news.

'We have a major problem and I need Harry's help, but firstly I need you to tell me if he's really ready to get involved?'

'By major you mean what?'

'That it's not only treason that he's being framed for, because after this morning's visit, you can add murder,'

'That's impossible, he's been here with me, I can prove it,'

'But you can't Ruth, you're dead, you don't exist, we can't use you.'

Christ this was a nightmare, it was Cotterdam all over again, except that this time she wouldn't be able to save him.

'Then I agree you need to talk to Harry, but I absolutely insist that I'm in there with him,' she told Ros in a voice that didn't broker argument.

'Ros is here, she needs to talk to us Harry,' she told him, carrying the tray of coffee into the room and sitting down on the sofa beside him, absentmindedly taking his hand and confusing him even further.

In Ros's opinion, of the two people that were listening, Harry appeared to be the most calm, as she started at the beginning and slowly filled in the bits that he couldn't remember.

Had she really appreciated Ruth's real worth, she'd have realised that she'd switched back into work mode and by not interrupting, she was listening and analysing at the same time, trying to make some sense out of what she was saying.

The fact that the services doctor could attest to the fact that Harry had been drugged and his ability to hang a man on his own would have been impossible, might come in useful later, but without declaring his whereabouts, wasn't a current option, was a case in point, as was the fact that for however long it took for this to be resolved, that she and Harry had to be kept hidden.

'No there aren't any positives yet,' Ros told them, in answer to Harry's, was there anything else to go on, 'other than Tariq's photographs, what the soco team might find if anything and a yet to be had conversation with the Home Secretary about the guards that _should_ have been working there during the time that he'd been incarcerated.'

'Should?' asked Harry.

'Malcolm has confirmed that the man we found dead was the daytime guard and bona fide, but the guards that were there at night probably weren't.'

'What I need,' she concluded, 'is for you two to put your heads together and come up with a list of people who you think would go to such lengths to discredit the section by getting rid of you, and most importantly why now? I'll ask Jo to keep you updated and vice versa.'

'Stop worrying Ros, this isn't the first time that someone's tried to get rid of me, at least I haven't been shot,' had a far deeper meaning than Ros realised, as she picked up her things and said she needed to go because she had a meeting at the Home Office.

'If you need extra help on the grid, I can give you a name,' Harry told her, 'he could prove very useful,'

'Alec White, he was drummed out wasn't he?' Ros asked him, after Harry had scribbled down his address.

* * *

Once Ros had gone, Ruth had sat through an interminably long afternoon listening to Harry recounting every aspect of his life in the service, with a list of potential enemies that read like the latest edition of Who's Who. She wasn't stupid enough to believe that he hadn't had more affairs than the one she knew about with Juliet Shaw, but that wasn't her concern. What was done was done. The Russians were at the top of his list, but why, it had been years since their two countries had really crossed swords.

'Let's just put _who_ to one side for a moment and concentrate on the _why_ , can we Harry?' She asked him, as she stood up to stretch her aching back and 'no just bear with me,' followed his, 'that's ridiculous.'

'What have they achieved by getting you out of the way, they obviously didn't intend killing you, otherwise they'd have done it?'

There had always be method in Ruth's madness and the light was slowly beginning to dawn on him, but he let her finish, realising how important it was to her that he didn't interrupt. She was standing in front of him almost bouncing with enthusiasm, just as she'd always done on the grid. _This_ was why Ros had persuaded her to come back, it had nothing to do with him.

'When have we ever known the section to struggle like this?' she asked him, which was never but he didn't say so, this was Ruth at her best. 'This has been orchestrated Harry, to happen when the section's at its weakest, not to destabilise it long term. It gives whoever they are, their best chance of pulling it off.

'Well they've already killed one man to achieve it and made an attempt to get rid of me.'

'Which tells us that this is big Harry, whatever it is?'

God I've missed you, he thought, but he didn't say so.


	6. Chapter 6

Maybe spending your life in the service of your country did come with some perks attached to it, if this was where you were forced to live if they gave you the proverbial boot, Ros concluded, as she climbed the first few steps up what looked like a fire escape, in search of the man that Harry had insisted could help her. Ducking under something that fitted her description of tacky which was masquerading as quite recently washed underwear, pegged onto a makeshift line on the landing below his, she was of a mind to turn back. Despite him knowing the address, she was prepared to bet that Harry had never been here. Wishing that she'd chosen to wear more sensible shoes and had dressed down, she stopped to take in her surroundings and a breath of the less than fresh air. The heels that she was wearing certainly hadn't been designed for this sort of climb nor had the elegant and tight fitting suit, which she'd been purposely chosen to help her gain the upper hand at her next appointment.

If you had nothing better to do other than to laze about in the sunshine, on what according to the previous evening's weather forecaster was going to be the start of an unseasonably warm spell of weather for late April, the last person that you'd want to turn up on your doorstep at seven in the morning, hell bent on dragging back into Thames House after three years of making do and surviving, would be Ros Myers.

'Who the bloody hell are you?' and 'you've got to be kidding me,' said Alec White, through bloodshot eyes at the blonde and dressed to kill dynamo that had finally reached his doorstep, demanding that there would be no excuses and she expected to see him in an hour's time.

'Harry said you'd be pleased to see me,' she told him with a look that he couldn't quite discern, as she glanced around what for him had been his sanctuary away from the world that had deserted him, where he'd lived without being judged, and until now had been able to drink himself half to death. But the offer of more money than he'd get in the way of benefits if he saw the year out unemployed, plus the threat to speak to what she rightly presumed was his current girlfriend's husband, made her offer a no brainer.

'Read this before you arrive and don't bloody loose it,' had seen Connie's file being passed like a parcel for the second time in as many days, before Ros disappeared back outside into the early morning sunshine and down the torturous steps to drive across London to Whitehall. She quite liked the idea of flustered in a man, it reminded her of Harry in the early days when he'd been around Ruth, and look where they were now. Well you never knew did you, this particular one had looked as though he might scrub up equally nicely?

* * *

Nicholas Blake already had a full diary for his day, so when his secretary paged him to say that Ros Myers was in her office and demanding a few moments of his time when he was just about to leave for a late breakfast meeting with the opposition leader, his response was far from courteous. He was however very keen to catch up on the latest news about the once Head of Counter Terrorism and hopefully be told where the hell the man had got to. The chairman of the JIC had been on his back for days, having contacted Thames House and been given what he'd described as the run round by one of the lame brains that worked at five, and then had the gall to threatened him that there was only so much time before the press would get hold of the fact that Harry Pearce had gone walkabout, insinuating, that in the resulting fallout, the PM would more than likely re assign him to the back benches. Bastard was the word that had come to mind, but he'd been so shocked by what appeared to be a veiled threat, that he'd failed to point out to the insidious man, that he was his employer not his employee.

'By special courier yesterday and addressed to you personally as requested Miss Myers,' referred to the names and addresses of the night staff that were employed by the Home Office to work at Kettlemere, answered her first question and 'no, apart from the chairman of the JIC, there had been no other enquiries into Harry's whereabouts.'

'And Harry, how is he?' didn't feature until after Ros had finished what she'd come to say, by pointedly telling him that her section was making good progress, given that they were shockingly short staffed. God damn it, that old chestnut, the number of times he'd been brushed off by Harry with the same bullshit which had apparently rubbed off on Ros. Maybe it was endemic in section heads that they piss off the Home Secretary by deflecting their questions to their own advantage?

'Harry's very well all things considered, but as I've pointed out before Home Secretary, your own safety as well as Harry's is paramount, so I'm afraid that until the current situation is resolved, it's crucial that I keep Harry's whereabouts to myself,' wasn't the answer he wanted, but was expecting.

'And this current situation that you keep talking about, may I ask?' He tried again less forcefully. Was he was never going to get a straight answer from this woman?

'Will be nullified I assure you Home Secretary, but I must rush I have an urgent meeting to attend, I'm sorry,' and Ros was on her feet again, as she and her not entirely distasteful rear end headed towards his door.

'Well thank you for the update Miss Myers, you've been most helpful and please give my best to Harry when you see him,' drifted into the ether, leaving him no further forward in knowing what was going on than before she'd arrived. Ros on the other hand had got exactly what she wanted. The creep Mace had been sniffing around had he, now that _was_ interesting?

* * *

With a clear plan for the rest of her day firmly in her head, she'd warned everyone with the exception of their suspected traitor, to be late on pain of death.

'Alec White seconded to us from another section to make up the numbers until Harry gets back,' Ros told Connie, well after the introductions and explanations as to the reasons that he was there, had been made to the rest of her staff.

'So Harry's coming back to us is he?' She felt obliged to ask, trying to appear interested.

'Well eventually, we're all assuming so, aren't you?' Jo asked her.

'Do we know where he is yet?' Ben asked the room in general, as Connie continued to wait for Ros to haul _the children_ back to a subject that didn't involve their no longer boss. These _don't tell Connie what's going on games_ were getting very tedious, not that it mattered, she already knew the answers to most of the questions.

She got her wish right on cue, as Ros suggested that they get back to more pressing matters that they did have some control over and would Alec give her a moment and then come into her office for a briefing.

One of the things that Connie didn't know was that Tariq had installed a programme into her computer that linked it to Ruth's, so holding Connie back as the other's filed out of the meeting room, Ros told her that there was a rumour floating about that the CIA were up to something and she wanted her to spend as much time as it took to find out what it was.

'Ethic's don't come into it,' Ros had told Tariq, when he questioned whether he should be feeding Connie false information to keep her busy. 'It's a way of us keeping her at her desk and for Ruth to monitor what if anything else she's looking at or more importantly who she's communicating with. She may well be innocent and I hope that she is, but until we prove otherwise, I want that bloody woman watched night and day.'

In the few moments that she had to herself before Alec arrived, Ros turned her attention to Jo and Ben. They'd already left the grid to interview the two overnight guards. Dressed as police officers, their plan was to ask questions about a reported break in that had occurred in the property closest to Kettlemere, one of a small row of workers cottages that had once belonged to the main house in the glory days of having servants. Jo was making a good fist of protecting Ben, Ros knew that, and why not. She'd have done the same in the days when she'd been section chief, it was part of the job and she appreciated the way that Jo had stepped up.

Parking their car in the only available space, in what looked to be a very upmarket road in Highbury, Jo rang Malcolm.

'Based on the amount of traffic and the distance between where Ron Davies lives and where he works, it could take him anything up to an hour to get to and from work,' he told her.

They'd checked the cctv from the days either side of finding Harry's guard hanging, and there had been no sign of Ron either leaving or arriving at his house. His mobile phone appeared to be turned off and his wife who didn't go out to work hadn't answered the house phone. Ros was concerned that they'd find another body or worse still two.

'Is there anything wrong, can I help?' asked an inquisitive neighbour who was cutting his garden hedge and had seen the police car pull up and Ben ring the bell.

'Maybe you can sir. We've had reports of a stolen car that is registered to Mr Davies and we'd like to have a word with him, do you know where he is?' Jo asked.

'On holiday love, he and his misses have been gone for three weeks, some sort of prize it was, they're in the Bahamas.'

* * *

At the same time as their colleagues on the grid were trying to solve the multiples of unanswered questions and by working all hours, ensuring that they were kept safe, Harry was doing his best to prepare another late morning after breakfast. That was to say, it was the second _morning after the kiss_ breakfast when nothing more had happened or been said, about what for both of them should have been a huge step forward. It had taken every ounce of his restraint not to take Ruth to bed after what had been a kiss that would live with him forever. With the previous understanding that they'd developed seemingly blown to bits, she leant into him and responded with everything she had. Now though, he was totally confused as to what he might have said or done that had seen her backtracking from the moment that she'd laid eyes on him the following morning, whereas for Ruth it was simple. After all the years of indecision, she'd finally summoned up the courage to give Harry the green light and how had he responded? He'd kissed her and then said goodnight. Did he honestly not know how dreadful she was feeling, having offered herself to him on a plate and then been rejected?

'I've made you toast,' he tried, as she pottered into the kitchen with her head down and all the joy that he'd seen in her eyes two evenings ago seemingly gone. Her hand was resting on the table and his attempt to hold it just added to his misery, as it was snapped back before he could make contact. Christ what the hell was wrong with the woman, she'd thrown him a lifeline and the kiss had been amazing and now this. Would he ever understand women?

The day passed perilously slowly, as they worked as best they could, side by side but not touching, until Jo arrived as arranged just before dinner which Harry alone was cooking.

As soon as Ruth opened the door, Jo's heart sank. Either something catastrophic had happened between the gird and here, although as she hadn't been red flashed more likely between Harry and Ruth. What was the matter with these two, and after the day that she'd had, did she really have the energy to find out?

'Harry's cooking dinner, I'm in here,' didn't bode well, especially as Ruth had a large glass of wine next to her computer as opposed to her usual cup of tea.

For what felt like an age to Jo but not long enough for Ruth, Jo updated her on the outcome of the day. Ros's visit to see the Home Secretary, her trip with Ben that proved without doubt that the usual night staff had been replaced by two that only Harry could identify, that Alec White had arrived and although she hadn't actually talked to him other than for a few minutes, that she agreed with Harry's assessment that he was a good addition to the team, and that Tariq had completed the link to her computer so that she could access what Connie was doing.

'We're still no further forward though, that's the trouble, how about you two?' she asked Ruth,

There could have been so many other ways that Jo could have worded that sentence and she hadn't meant it in any context other than work, but as Ruth's face crumbled, she knew that she'd put her foot in it big time, and felt compelled her to take Ruth's hands in her own.

'Talk to me Ruth,' she suggested.

With work forgotten such was her despair, Ruth did what she'd never done before and spoke to the only person other than Harry that she truly trusted, starting by telling Jo that she'd got it wrong about Harry's feelings for her, and as a result she'd made a fool of herself.

'Don't be ridiculous,' was Jo's unsaid response, 'tell me how if you want to?' she went with, in a way that she hoped would make Ruth feel that she could continue and sort out this will they won't they once and for all. Even with her resolve to right the wrongs, this was getting tedious.

With Ruth's memory that was second to none she started to speak, hesitatingly at first until it became an almost he said I said account, as she told Jo what had happened. The only glimmer of a smile came when she told her about the look of horror on Harry's face when he'd said 'well you should try sleeping in it.'

'And what happened after that?' Jo asked her.

'I virtually threw myself at him and all I got was a kiss, and now it's almost impossible to continue to be near him, how could I have possibly got it so wrong?'

If Ruth hadn't looked so totally alone and as though all the energy had been sucked out of her, Jo would have started her response with don't be such an idiot. But this was Ruth, who was brilliant beyond any of them when it came to solving work related problems, but so utterly inept when it came to dealing with what she perceived to be problems in her private life. She'd watched the pair of them together, she knew how Harry felt, she wasn't wrong, so bugger it, one last try she thought.

'Have you and Harry actually sat down and discussed what happens after this is over Ruth, surely you can see things from his point of view can't you?'

'Well I've told him all about my new job and where I was living,'

'As in ' _It was lovely, I was really enjoying myself Harry_?'

'Well yes I suppose so,'

'But you haven't actually told him why you came back for instance?'

'I thought that was obvious?'

'Nothing's ever been obvious about you two, well apart from,'

'What do you mean?'

Enough Ruth, stop being obtuse, was what she wanted to say, but she took a gentler route, she was running out of ideas and this might be the only chance that she had.

'If you'd done what you both so obviously wanted to do, and at the end of this op, how can I put it, maybe you say 'cheerio Harry I'm flying back to the States tomorrow,' he'll be devastated. You're not just a pick up and put down to Harry, I've told you before, he's in love with you,'

'But that's not what I'll say,'

'Quite, but Harry's not a minder reader Ruth, well not all the time, he needs you to tell him.'

* * *

He hadn't intending listening outside the door, but having arrived to tell them that dinner was ready and heard Ruth say that it was impossible to be near him now that she'd got it so wrong, he'd felt compelled him to stay. The fact that Ruth was feeling confident enough to talk to Jo rather than him, really hurt. How could she possibly believe that he wouldn't want her beyond this op? But that was his fault, not hers. As soon as dinner was over and Jo had gone, they'd have that conversation and he'd bloody well prove it to her.


	7. Chapter 7

Hurt, resentful and brooding really didn't suit Harry, well not the one that Ruth had come to love, so it came as a great relief and against all her expectations that dinner was turning out to be a much more relaxed and enjoyable affair than it had been the previous evening. Whether it was because Jo was sitting there with them and enjoying what was an extremely tasty casserole that Harry had somehow managed to throw together with what had been left in the fridge, or he was pretending in an attempt to keep their private life just that, which was possible although unlikely given the circumstances, she had absolutely no idea. The looks that he kept giving her had also changed. They were open and relaxed and had lost the dreadful pleading and hurt expression of the last couple of days, and for that she truly was grateful. It didn't seem to be concerning him that Jo was watching them either, so as a result she just went with what was and finally felt herself to be breathing normally for the first time since the kiss. Jo knew virtually everything about them anyway and she was right, they did need to sort this out. They weren't a couple of teenagers she and Harry, they were two bloody repressed adults who weren't getting any younger, and had already wasted too much time.

By the time that they finished eating and Jo had given them the latest news from the grid, which in this case amounted to of a lot of hard work but with very progress, peppered with amusing anecdotes about Ros's visits to see both the Home Secretary and her description of the staircase laundry to recruit Alec White, it was well after midnight.

'I really do need to get going or I'm going to be late in the morning and Ros can be a real stickler when it comes to punctuality,' Ruth suspected was an excuse for Jo to leave, rather than have to continue to watch the obvious lust fuelled atmosphere that was building between herself and Harry, although Jo's summing up of her new boss Ruth could well believe. Even now she couldn't imagine herself working directly under Ros, and she certainly had no current plans to revisit that particular scenario.

'Not at all like I used to be then?' chipped in Harry with a positively light hearted tone to his voice, interrupting her train of thought, which given that it was so late, or early depending which way you wanted to look at it and they were both tired, confused her even further. She'd been imagining that he'd been pining for Thames House and was craving to get back there, but _used to be_ was very much in the past tense. Whatever? she thought, Jo was right, it was late, and after what had been two dreadfully restless nights they both needed to get to bed. Promising herself that she'd talk to Harry in the morning and explain to him why she'd behaved like an idiot, she hugged Jo goodbye with a brief whisper of thank you.

* * *

'Well we'll look forward to seeing you again tomorrow evening Miss Portman, but before you go, I think you should be aware, that I was somewhat surprised to hear that you appear to know the innermost feelings of my heart far better than Ruth does,' was said in Harry's grid voice, as he held open the front door for Jo to leave.

Her heart sank, her mind racing as she tried to recall her precise input into the conversation that she'd had with Ruth, which he'd so obviously overheard.

'Having said that I forgive you and in this case you'll be spared a holiday in Azakstan,' he continued, holding up a hand to stop her apologising, before with a real twinkle in his eye and totally out of the blue, he plonked an unexpected kiss on her forehead.

Refraining from calling him a bastard which was Ruth's prerogative, a much relieved and stunned Jo gathered her thoughts and then smiled.

'Good luck,' she dared, and then fled before he changed his mind, trying to wipe away the picture that had popped into her head as to what might be happening for the remainder of the night. Bloody hell, good old Harry, no wonder he'd been so chirpy over dinner.

* * *

Ruth knew what was coming or at least she thought she did. Harry wasn't the only one that could eavesdrop, except that in her case she'd been doing it on purpose. As her stomach started to turn summersaults, she tried desperately to look for something to hold onto, but there was nothing except the walls and they were closing in. For what felt like an age but was in fact a few seconds, she heard Harry close and lock the door, she heard what amounted to his silent footsteps along the hall way, but resisting the urge to flee, she somehow managed to stop her legs that were all but giving way beneath her stand firm. This time he wasn't sitting on his bed with her leaning against him, he was walking towards her, his eyes smouldering into hers, strong, steadfast and with the look on his face that she hadn't seen since that night of regret at Havensworth. What was it about corridors and Harry that so overwhelmed her to the point of not being able to breath?

No camera's this time she thought, as she fought desperately to tear her eyes away from his and at the same time remember what she'd confided in Jo which had completely deserted her. How much of that conversation had he heard? Was he angry, surely not, she'd die if she'd blown it, she truly would.

'What's it going to be Ruth, should we have that chat now, or shall we just go to bed?' was a simple enough question, but it was the last thing that she expected him to say. As relief flooded through her she tried not to smile, but found that she couldn't. In the space of a moment Harry had managed to go from nought to ten without any apparent effort, not that it helped her find a coherent answer to his question. In fact she had no idea what she'd expected him to say, maybe Hi as he always did, which was ridiculous given the circumstances? How could a question that didn't require an answer, well at least not a spoken one, threaten to overwhelm her, by awakening every emotion that she'd ever felt when Harry stood this close to her? Just follow where this takes you she told herself, struggling to contain the overwhelming urge to kiss him again.

'Well?' he asked again, as Ruth opened and closed her mouth adoringly. He was teasing her, seeing how far he could push her, inwardly praying that she knew that and wouldn't run. He was drowning beneath the sheer wonder of the moment and with the expectation of what was to come. This was their once in a lifetime and he was determined to make the most of it.

Leave it to him she concluded, Harry will know what to do, this is the something wonderful that you've both been dreaming about.

Still he made her wait, savouring every glorious second, watching the myriad of emotions that were flying across Ruth's beautiful face. The mischief, the same want in her eyes that was so much more intense tonight. No more teasing or one or other of them might lose their nerve. Move before she does, get this right. You've imagine this moment a thousand of times in your head.

Tentatively almost reverently with his eyes never leaving hers, he took a step closer and ran his hand down one side of her face and then slowly into her hair. The intensity of feeling that such a simple action could bring to her body shocked her. In what had been her previous brief and far from satisfying experiences, acting had played a huge part. But without any preamble and with one single movement she was ready for him, all her fears dispatched. This was Harry who was touching her, it was exquisite and she was melting under his touch. A door flung open that could never be closed.

'I think that we're done with talking,' she finally managed, knowing that it was all the invitation that he needed.

It was close to two in the morning, they would need to start working again in a few hours from now, but for the first time in Harry's life, that ran in a poor second. An obviously nervous Ruth who in not so many words had said yes, had obliterated any thoughts as to why they were really here, the threat that hung over them or the consequences of what they were about to do. If they had something to say to each other then they had to say it, but she was right, not until the morning.

'Bed it is then,' he told her, with his heart hammering so loud in his chest that he felt sure she could hear it, he took her hand in his and walked the few steps and opened her bedroom door.

* * *

By the time that the sun started to rise a few hours later, they had lost count of the barriers that had come down, such had been that night. Tears, the most exquisite and fulfilling coming together that both of them up until now had only dreamed about, and an absolute certainty on Harry's part that this had always been their destiny. Soft and welcoming and more beautiful than he'd ever dared to imagine, a naked Ruth had given herself over to him, with an abandon that despite his age had sustained and fulfilled him.

On Ruth's part there had been no acting or holding herself back, resistance would have been futile. She'd been so right about Harry and she loved him all the more for it. Everything that he'd done and said had been gentle and beautiful and so full of love. There would be no going back after this, he was all that she had ever wanted, they had finally stepped over that line.

Harry woke first unable to move such was the way that Ruth was wrapped around him, her left leg between both of his pressing against what was already his growing erection. Her arm slung around his waist and her head buried in his shoulder. It was how they'd fallen asleep and he marvelled as to how they'd managed to stay that way all night. He'd always known how much smaller in stature she was than him, it was one of the many things that had attracted him to her. But here, naked in his arms and minus the armour that had up until now covered her body, he had no words that adequately described how he was feeling.

Whether what had happened and been said was enough to bind her to him, he still didn't know, neither of them had said _I love you._ Ruth was still young with so much of her life in front of her, whereas he was a battered and worn out old spook that was overloaded with self - recrimination. Had she made friends in the States or more precisely someone she would want to go back to, he had no idea? But he needed to know the answers and he needed to know today, it was a conversation that despite everything they'd shared, he was still dreading.

Ruth had no such uncertainties as she lay there, blissfully recalling the way they had come together and enjoying the feel of Harry's hand that was ghosting it's way across her back with the promise of more to come. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the clock on the bedside table, telling her that it was nearly eight and that they should at least be having breakfast, if not working. Sod it she thought, they were owed this moment, surely another half an hour couldn't hurt could it?

 **On the other side of town in a house in North East London.**

One of the many advantages that having so many different locations available to you in which to meet, was that there was very little chance that whoever was following you would be able to keep up, especially if they were young and inexperienced. On this particular morning having left home early and arrived from three different directions, their latest meeting hadn't been designed to be a falling out or an exercise in apportioning blame as to why Harry had been allowed to escape and then disappear without trace, but more importantly, to come up with a solution as to how and retrieve the situation with the little time available to them.

It had been years in the planning, almost from the moment that she'd been dismissed, without not so much as a thank you for all the years in the service of her country, until sometime later when they'd been unable to cope, they'd crawled back cap in hand and had the gall to try and persuade her to help them. Well now it was her turn to hold the dice, so close to achieving her objective that she could almost taste it. The overriding problem was that the date was set in stone and they were in a now or never situation, unless they waited another however many years or rejigged her entire plan.

Accomplices hadn't been difficult to find. Both the Services and Harry's well rumoured insatiable desire to have and then dump women, both professionally and personally had seen to that, it was going to be the perfect sting to bring him and his blasted section down. But in the short term, if the bastard _had_ gone underground to enable him to work away from prying eyes, which she suspected he had, otherwise why would they have sprung him, she was currently walking a fine line between success and a future that didn't bear thinking about.

'You're at the coal face and in a far better position than we are to find him, that's why I recruited you,' she told an increasingly tired and sceptical looking Connie.

'Yes we're all agreed on that, but you're the genius that suggested that we crash the CCTV at Kettleworth that's landed us in this mess.'

'For our own good for Christ's sake not his, are you sure that it's his disciples that have squirrelled him away?'

Well who else cares enough about him or would have the resources to do it, had been a question that they'd been pondering for some time without a firm answer.

'More importantly who's this wife that he's been rumoured to have acquired and why for Christ's sake, the list of volunteers can't be very long, not at his age? Most of the likely candidates we already know, and why didn't they just take him back to the grid once they've proved him innocent?'

'I hope that you're not suggesting that I was one of his conquests, I've got enough trouble trying to keep up with their keep Connie out of the loop conversations, you've know idea how difficult this is becoming. Ros bloody Myers is a real bitch, she's certainly not the pushover that you suggested, and now that they've brought in some bloke from six, it won't be long before they piece this all together.'

'But there's nothing to piece together yet.'

'Are you totally stupid, they're spies for heavens sake. You had their boss accused of treason, which I said from the beginning was a ridiculous idea and we should have found a way to get him suspended. They're not going to let this go despite the pretence, believe you me we could be in trouble.'

'It sounds to me as you're starting to get cold feet Connie and you know where that will lead?'

Connie did, there was evidence to prove it.

'Well if your goons had kept going before they decided to hang someone he'd have eventually told them and we wouldn't be having to have this conversation, but they didn't and I'm not by the way, so we have to stop arguing and come up with another way to distract them,' Connie countered.

'So what do you suggest, we concentrate on finding the wife and use her for leverage?'

'What the love of a woman verses the service to his country, what a wonderful dilemma. I seem to remember that he had that problem once before, I'll take another look at the records, but I'm pretty sure that particular conquest was found dead.


	8. Chapter 8

Whilst Malcolm had been busy trying to discover _the_ _who and why,_ Tariq had been working on _the what and_ _where_ aspect of whatever was being planned. On the basis of their research and working on the presumption that maximum impact was the objective, they'd reduced the list of probabilities to three. All due to take place in London over the Bank Holiday weekend in ten days, were The Queen's 90th Birthday celebration in the grounds of Windsor Castle that would prompt hundreds of street parties all over the capital, a huge celebrity fuelled Pop Concert at one of the largest football stadiums in South London that would be attended by thousands including youngsters, but most likely and what they knew would be the most difficult to monitor was the London Marathon that as always started in Greenwich Park and ended with the runners skirting St James's Park before finishing in The Mall, just a few metres from Buckingham Palace. They'd made a note of these along with the dozens of other possibilities, although until Malcolm had gone through the list and weighed up the security options, they hadn't been deemed to be any more significant than any of the others.

The work had been relentless and in addition to keeping tabs on Connie, he Tariq and Ben had paid visits to the sections huge list of associates and snitches that kept their ears to the ground and eyes peeled, only to be brought out of the woodwork when called upon to be quizzed about the latest buzzword on the streets. One particular young man that Ben had befriended during his time as a journalist was John Anderson, a one - time aspiring writer that had fallen on hard times, who was now living from hand to mouth with whatever he could scrounge and when he wasn't being moved on by the police, roamed his patch in and around Westminster Bridge.

'Tell me exactly what John told you,' Malcolm asked him, as Ben walked back into the room to join them, apologising because he was late yet again.

It'll be brilliant next week, he'd said to Ben, the police will be so busy setting up the diversion signs and altering the road markings for the London Marathon, that nobody will be taking any notice of me. I'll been able come and go where and when I like.

'Is he reliable this friend of yours, what's your take on us asking him to come in?'

'He'll be sceptical at best, mainly because he's had a really rough time from the authorities but through no fault of his own, but he's learnt to be street wise and nothing gets past him, so if someone else needs to talk to him, I'm more than happy to make the introductions.'

Thousands of runners, some of whom would be dressed in all manner of costumes, plus the huge crowd that would line the entire length of the route, via heaven knows many famous landmarks, _at night_ for the first time ever, chaos could be wrought right across London and with half the world's media watching on, the authorities would be almost powerless to stop it.

'Contact the organisers and get me a list of the runners,' Malcolm told Tariq, 'then I need you and Ben to check the details of every single one of them.'

'But there are thousands,'

'And I'm sorry, but this is going to be another very long day and I need to go into the meeting room and talk to Ros, because there's a far more pressing problem that's just been flagged up.'

* * *

They were her friends, who in their own different ways had invited her into their personal space, so 'they're fine,' had been Jo's guarded response when Ros questioned her as to how Harry and Ruth were and whether or not they were still managing to survive under the same roof, until in a week where it seemed that eavesdropping was becoming the norm, Malcolm's head appeared around the door and announced that he was sorry, but he might just be about to toss a spanner into the works.

'I hate to be the bearer of more bad news,' he continued hesitatingly as Ros rolled her eyes, 'but it seems that someone has been hacking into our personal records,' he told her, passing round a list that contained the names of all the female personnel that for the last ten years or so had worked at five. 'Most worrying is the fact that Ruth's name is still on that list, despite the fact that we all know that Adam and Zaf went to great lengths to remove it when she was exiled,' he told them.

Ros's response to his announcement was barely discernible, thanking him in a voice that sounded anything but grateful and asking him to go and talk to Tariq and tell him that he had her permission to do whatever it took to discover who the hackers were, before standing up with her usual flourish and with what was becoming a daily occurrence, she asked if any of them had heard from Connie, or knew where the hell she was?

Malcolm thought better than to tell her that he had already given Tariq a task that would take him all day, and that the three of them were already drowning in a sea of data and misinformation.

Alec, who so far sat had through what up until Malcolm's arrival, had been teetering towards another non - productive meeting, suggested it was interesting that the list was totally gender biased and that in his opinion that made it significant.

'Whoever these people are they've been searching for women who have a connection, however tenuous, to Harry,' he told them, justifying his existence and prompting Ros to sit down again and to ask him keep talking. 'This, whatever there planning is female driven, I'll stake my life on it. Foreign powers or splinter groups, forget them, we should be looking for women that have worked closely with Harry or he might have pissed off in any way shape or form during the last ten years.'

'How long is a piece of string?' Ros muttered under her breath, wondering if Jo was up to the task of going back to visit their boss to pose the question, or whether perhaps she should be the one to do it.

'You should also be very worried given the circumstances of Ruth's departure and return that she still appears on that list. My suggestion would be that you move her to another location which is as far away from Harry as possible,' he continued, oblivious as to why what he had told them had changed the atmosphere in the room immesurably.

'And watch Harry combust or worse still have a coronary, no chance?' Ros muttered and Jo said, 'please God not Mace again,' louder than she intended.

* * *

Oblivious, also applied to the couple who had finally put duty to one side and having turned off their phones, were enjoying an intimate brunch rather than breakfast.

'Harry,'

'Yes Ruth,' was said with a real twinkle in his eyes, which she now knew she wasn't going to shatter into a hundred pieces as it once had. Why the hell had it taken them so long to reach this moment, to be sitting opposite the person that you truly wanted to spend the rest of your life with and do something as simple as eat breakfast together, having just made love for a second time? We need to talk had been said far too many times by both of them, it was as worn out as a pair of old slippers and would only raise doubts in his mind and send them spiralling downwards into one of their _how the hell do we retrieve something out of this_ scenarios. Jo had hit the nail on the head when she'd told her that she needed to explain to Harry the full extent of the new life that she'd built for herself, and tell him that no, she hadn't found the man of her dreams in the US, that she'd left him behind when she'd sailed away and that nothing had changed. She needed to tell him that she'd loved him then and still did, but in the cold light of day, finding those three words, let alone tell Harry wasn't proving easy.

Harry was still marvelling that after years of expectation when so many times he'd believed that they might be at a point where they'd _get past the winning post_ only to fall at the last fence, they'd actually managed to reach it, albeit as the result of an overheard conversation. Not only that, the entire experience had been perfect and by the look on Ruth's face this morning, when sticking to his horse racing analogy _he'd insisted on a rerun_ , she appeared to agree. It was one thing to make love in the dark, but an entirely different kettle of fish to do it for only the second time, in the early morning light whilst anyone who was sane was still sleeping, and be able to watch the look of sheer abandonment and then contentment on the face of the person that you loved and were blissfully conjoined with. It had made him feel eons of years younger than his fifty something years.

'Harry,' she pressed him again, as she sat watching him moving his breakfast around the plate, drifting off into Harry land as he so often had in the past, although this time with the smile still intact on his face. 'I need you to listen to me while I elaborate on my two years in the States and there's something that I need to tell you.'

'Is this going to spoil my breakfast?' he asked her, the concern that had been missing, now evident in his voice.

'That rather depends on whether or not you still love me,' she said, as her mouth overtook her brain for once and she finally heard herself saying what was uppermost in her mind, and according to Jo, his as well.

As the air stilled around them and the earth momentarily stopped turning on its axis, in a flat where they'd been thrown together to be kept safe from those who wished them harm, wide eyed and disbelieving hazel locked with the deepest of blue. Breathing in unison to whatever song was quietly playing on the radio behind them, Harry gazed at Ruth, his breakfast abandoned, her question still unanswered.

In what should and would have been the grandest of gestures, had he been able to stay calm, Harry stood up and took a step forward.

'Bollocks,' he said, as his thigh collided with the side of the table in his attempt to reach Ruth without looking where he was going, relieving the tension that saw them both dissolving into laughter.

'I bet you're going to tell me you could have jumped over that table at one time,' she said with a real glint of affection in her eyes, which was only overtaken by what he said next.

'You said _if_ I still love you?'

'So I did.'

'I seem to remember I tried to tell you once before and you stopped me.'

'Well I'm not stopping you now.'

 **An hour later.**

'Before you tell me about what you got up to in the States, I need to tell you something that Ros said to me, when she and I were drinking far too much on the day that Adam died,' he told her, by which time they had showered and dressed and Harry had answered her question and then some. 'She told me that she and Adam were never meant to be, and although she never actually said it, I believe that it was her way of apologising and suggesting that you and I were, I like to think so anyway.'

'Because you like her or you want me to forgive her? It's not that easy Harry,' was said without rancour.

'Partly, but it's more than that. She saved me Ruth when you went away, struggling to get out of bed, stuck in the same routine every day, with your empty desk taunting me every time that I walked across the grid or looked out of my office window in the ridiculous hope that you'd be there. Everybody knowing that I was falling apart and not able to concentrate on doing my job properly. You have no idea how many analysts came and went because of my behaviour during that first year after you left.'

What Harry had said amounted to a confession which was so out of character with anything that Ruth had ever heard him say, that she found herself struggling to find an answer, other than to take both his hands in her own and to lift them to her lips and kiss his knuckles with all the gentleness she could muster. She'd spent the best part of two years imagining him sitting behind his desk and getting on with life as he always did. Hoping that she'd occasionally cross his mind and was missing her, but continuing to solve whatever problems was being thrown at him with the same doggedness and panache that had drawn her to him like a magnet in the first place. But seemingly not, he'd been as lost as she'd been and he needed to know that she understood that.

'I got my wish, in part anyway, although I still haven't been to New York,' she told him, causing Harry to lift his face to look at her with a recollection that was seared on both their hearts. 'I loved my job Harry and the normality that my life had taken on, and Boston is a wonderful place to live, I'd really like you to see it if we ever get that chance. But there wasn't a single day when I was living there and was walking across the green on my way home from work, that I didn't imagine you walking towards me. How ridiculous was that?'

It wasn't ridiculous at all, she'd been struggling along the same path as he'd been and the honesty with which she was speaking, no holding back, giving him all the answers to the questions that up until now he had only imagined, was almost unheard of, bearing in mind that it was Ruth that was telling him.

'I wish I'd known where you were Ruth,' was said barely above a whisper.

'But you didn't Harry and where would that have got us if you had? You jumping on plane and flying off to rescue me and bring me home, with Mace still in the frame and looking for me?'

'For the best then, all things considered.'

'I'd say so.'

The joyous atmosphere had changed, but the emotional closeness that they'd always had, had received the final coat of paint to seal it. They were bound together not only by their strengths but by the frailties that were theirs and theirs alone, brought to the forefront in one single conversation.

'I love you so very much,' he told her.

* * *

Heading across London was Jo, wondering if perhaps it wouldn't just be easier to move in with Harry and Ruth, rather than be required to make another visit in the space of less than twelve hours, whilst hoping that the reason that their phones were turned off as were their computers, wasn't because one or other of them had been spirited away, but was for reasons best known to her. It had taken all her powers of persuasion to get Ros to allow her to be the breaker of bad news, although in the short term she'd mercifully rejected Alec's quite probably sound advice, in favour of Harrys and quite probably Ruth's sanity. If Harry couldn't protect Ruth, who could Ros had pointed out, besides which, with the section stretched to breaking point and no one outside the core staff completely trustworthy until proved otherwise, they were as Ros had put it, stuffed.

You can do this she told herself, just remember to ignore Alec's suggestion. How could he have possibly imagined that with the love of his life sitting next to him, _that in order to track down the culprits_ , _I need you to tell me_ _how many women you have pissed off or slept with in the last ten years Harry_ ,would be the best way to start the conversation.


	9. Chapter 9

Had anyone taken the time to document them, then Harry's well recognised collection of facial expressions followed by a well - honed diatribe, should anyone dare to be the bearer of bad news, would have made for interesting reading. So it only took a moment for Jo to realise, that her _so soon after the previous evening's visit,_ wasn't exactly welcome and that she'd arrived at what could only be described as an inopportune moment. Late - morning, Ruth's hair so recently washed and not yet dry, the breakfast things still littered across the kitchen table and their combined sleep deprived faces, told her everything that she needed to know. Thank god for small mercies, they'd finally managed to get their act together. Yes, Harry made a very good attempt at hiding it, whereas Ruth could barely meet her eye, the blush heightening from her throat upwards.

Had they been less under pressure, she would almost certainly have given them some time to prepare for what she was about to deliver, but now wasn't the time for sentiment. This was a massive reality check into the real reason that they were here and together, and in light of what Alec had suggested, however difficult, had to be dealt with now and not at a time that suited them.

Feeling far less comfortable than she'd been the previous evening and after a weak smile by way of an apology to Ruth, she followed Harry's disappearing figure into the sitting room and produced what she knew was a potential time bomb.

Side tracked by the look of resignation that had settled across Harry's face, she completely forgot her well - rehearsed lines and without preamble, went with the first thing that came into her head.

'Malcolm's come across this list Harry and in view of what's happened to you, Ros and Alec want you to go through it and highlight anybody that you've had a relationship with.'

Well that went down well she thought to herself, as she watched the colour rise in his cheeks and the fingers on both his hands stretch out into spikes and then ball up into fists.

'Define relationship,' he growled, 'I hope you're not suggesting what I think you are Miss Portman?' was delivered with the ice cold sound to his voice that she recognised only too well and would have sent her running a mile had she been on the grid. But they weren't, they were sitting across the room from each other, with Ruth who was making them some coffee likely to be back at any minute. She'd volunteered for this and for reasons best known to her she needed him to know that.

'I'm not suggesting anything Harry and believe you me, at this precise moment I'd rather be anywhere other than here, but it was me or Ros Harry and for Ruth's sake I persuaded her to let me do it, so please stop accusing me of being disrespectful and just hear me out.'

As Harry's mouth opened and then closed as though he was attempting to catch flies, or was momentarily resigned to listening, the predictably of what was likely to follow was overtaken by her desire to maintain her advantage, before he dispatched her back to Thames House with a note that said must try harder, where she'd be deemed a complete failure. Christ had she really spoken to him like that? Strike now you idiot she told herself as she watched him visibly building himself up to another of his, _how dare you speak to me like that_ tirades. Beat him to it, it was time to deliver what she knew was going to put a giant sized cat amongst the pigeons.

'The section's been targeted again Harry, someone has hacked into our personal records or to be precise these personal records,' she told him, handing him the list, 'and Alec is convinced that for whatever reason, amongst those names are the people behind your abduction,' she told him, in a voice that she hoped he'd recognise as her attempt at reconciliation.

Before her eyes and with a pause before he answered her, she watched the other Harry Pearce, the one that loved Ruth and she suspected would rather die than lose her again, slump down at the desk as though he'd been shot.

'But Ruth's on this list, that can't be possible?' was said to himself with a deep and faltering breath, before he raised his head to look at her with an expression that told her everything.

'Yes she is Harry, which is the reason that we're so worried, considering that Adam went to great lengths to remove it and she's supposed to be dead,' she told him, the fight now gone from both of them and a quiet understanding having descended across the room.

* * *

Ruth chose this moment to arrive with their coffee, as if she'd been summoned by some mystical power to assure him that she was real and alive.

'Which begs the question about Connie, Harry finally asked Jo, 'does Ros seriously suspect that she's involved?' she imagined was his attempt at delaying the inevitable.

'Involved yes, but we don't think that she's masterminding it. Her daily work pattern's changed and in the last few days she's been spending far less time on the grid, which is another reason that I have to ask you to go through that list now, so that I can go back to Ros with some answers.'

Amongst the four pages of names, most of which Harry barely remembered, some not at all, eventually highlighted under sufferance and with a degree of embarrassment, were a dozen or so that for one reason or another, which give him his due Jo thought, Harry explained he'd either driven out by being boorish or sacked for inappropriate conduct either professionally or personally and he'd noted as such.

'In the case of Juliet Shaw, it was a brief and ill - advised affair that cost me the love of my children,' was said in a voice that Jo recognised as deep regret, 'whereas with Ruth, I'm assuming that you already have the answers that you need,' he concluded, crossing the room from the desk where he'd been sitting and settling himself down next to Ruth, in what Jo suspected was an act of mutual support and defiance against the need to disclose what he presumed was going to be repeated to all and sundry, whereas Ros intended keeping it very much in the eyes only bracket, that wouldn't be extended beyond the necessary few.

'What's the target, do we know that yet?' Ruth asked her, in an attempt to save Harry or her for that matter further embarrassment. If Jo was going to ask him to elaborate on his sex fuelled relationship with Juliet Shaw which she was now privy to, with every gory detail thrown in, he'd be mortified. Worse than that, she certainly didn't want the entire section delving back into what had or hadn't gone on between herself and Harry in the early days, not that it had amounted to more than one date, a kiss goodnight on her doorstep and a failed attempt by both of them at Havensworth, which as far as she knew, only Malcolm had witnessed. What she and Harry were doing now was nobody's bloody business, although it was if that made sense and at the moment Ruth was struggling to make sense of any of it.

The only two people who knew that Harry had been the last person to see her and what had transpired before she'd been exiled were dead, but several of the women on the list had been there then and still were. Once junior analysts who had been party to the chatter that had caused her to refuse Harry that second date, a couple of which he'd highlighted for whatever reason. Had they fallen for him as she had, made a pass at him when he was vulnerable perhaps, was that the reason that he'd sacked them? There were just too many questions and not enough answers and Ruth thrived on answers.

'By process of elimination, Malcolm's concluded that at some point it'll be the London Marathon that'll be targeted, but exactly where and how, we have absolutely no idea. He, Tariq and Ben are working full out and now that we've discovered this list, Alec is convinced we'll find who's behind it,' Jo told them, bringing them back to Ruth's original question and from wherever their minds had been wandering.

She'd sat watching them processing what she'd told them, a mini meeting room briefing away from the grid. How much easier it would have been had they all been sitting at Thames House, but that was the whole point of this wasn't it, divide and conquer no matter what the cost in terms of lives or to the nation as a whole, if they were to lose Harry's dedication and brilliance.

All but one of her tasks, the most difficult were done and then she needed to head back and go to her meeting with Ben. She wasn't the only one that was bone weary with the lack of sleep, but unlike them she wouldn't be able blank things out by heading back to her bed.

'There's something else which is equally if not more important given your _relationship_ ,' she told them, waiting for another outburst from Harry that didn't come. 'Now that Malcolm's discovered this list, we have a real concern about Ruth's safety. Alec's take on things, is that she may be well targeted again to get you to come out of the woodwork Harry, and his advice was that we separate you and get Ruth as far away from you as possible,' she told him, watching Ruth shake her head and the anger resume its position in Harry's eyes, as he moved protectively closer to her until there was no space between them and his arm was wrapped tightly around her shoulders. Hold your horses she thought, I haven't finished yet. 'After much discussion we _are_ going to move you both, this evening at nine, so you need to be packed and ready. Malcolm and Tariq are coming to collect you and will want to get you out of here with as little fuss as possible, however,' and here she paused, knowing that this would massively ease the added burden that her news had brought. 'Against what we all agree was sound advice from Alec, Ros has decided to go out on a limb here and we're keeping you together. She was adamant Harry, that you were best qualified to protect Ruth.'

Neither of them moved or said anything, although she discerned a huge flicker of relief and gratitude pass across both their faces as Harry nodded in agreement.

'Ros does however need you to promise me that you won't do anything stupid Harry, which includes leaving the rest of this to us. Oh and by the way, one last message. She says turn your bloody phones back on.'

* * *

'You have to promise me Joanne,' he said, his voice barely above a whisper as he opened the door for her to leave. 'If anything does goes wrong and you have to make a choice, that you'll put Ruth's safety ahead of my own.'

She didn't want to answer and she knew full well that Ros would never accept it, but she also knew that Harry needed to hear it.

'We will,' she told him.

* * *

'So you're the big cheese that Ben keeps banging on about,' had Jo wondering just how much Ben had disclosed to his friend John about her and their colleagues.

'I'm not anything,' she countered, hoping that he was just pulling her leg or perhaps was nervous that they'd suggested that in the short term they wanted him to come on board.

They were sitting either side of one of the picnic tables in Greenwich Park enjoying a coffee and a sandwich, with what Jo had presumed were three stolen racing bikes with all the gear, propped up against a nearby tree.

'Stop worrying,' John continued, picking up on what she was looking at, 'I'm part of a network and those are on loan for as long as we need them, but shouldn't we be making a move?'

Before they did, she needed to explain their instructions from Ros and she had some questions of her own that she needed to ask John.

'This network that you keep talking about, how many of you are there and are you sure that they can they be trusted?' Jo asked him, having been briefly distracted by his hypnotic brown eyes and the fact that he didn't look as though he lived on the streets.

'There are ten of us and yes we're completely trustworthy,' he told her, before going on to speak with a passion that was worthy of Harry. 'Just because we don't mix with the high and mighty, doesn't mean that we don't have the same right to love the city that we live in, there's surely no division when it comes to appreciating beautiful things is there?'

'No you're absolutely right,' she heard herself agreeing with him, totally taken aback by what he'd said and regretting that she'd pre-judged him.

Ros had given her explicit instructions that they were to ride the full length of the Marathon course, taking notes and photographs of virtually anything or anybody that looked out of place, no matter how insignificant. You'll be posing as tourists on a cycling tour of London, she'd told her, justifying the reason that they'd be taking numerous photographs. Roadworks that are in progress, buildings of interest, landmarks that might be targeted, anything that you think we need to look into more closely. One of you pose in front of something if you need to stop for a break or explain what you're doing, use your instinct, just don't take all day.

How about we take a group photograph?' Jo suggested to her companions, for the benefit of the couple of hoodies that were approaching the bench where they were sitting. That was the trouble when you were a spook, everyone had to be considered as a potential threat.

Twenty six plus miles in the heat of the afternoon, when you weren't used to cycling, even if you were fit was no mean task, so Jo took advantage of Ros's advice and stopped again. Having never found the time to watch the London Marathon, she was now becoming painfully aware how close the route came to passing dozens of significant landmarks. As they crossed Tower Bridge, marvelling at the architecture and its history, they stopped for another breather so that John could introduce them to what was now the fourth member of his group of friends. The fact that you could climb the towers they deemed significant and a possible target, the list of which was getting far too long for Jo's liking. With just a week before the race, in order that they could check out every possibility, she now knew that they needed to recruit John and his friends to do work that might well be beyond them. Making a mental note to tell Ros that this was turning into a potential minefield, they said their goodbyes and rode on. Re crossing the river, this time over Blackfriars Bridge, they turned left and headed along the embankment in the direction of the seat of government and some of the most influentially filled buildings in London. Whitehall, the Home and Foreign Offices, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey were less than a couple of miles away, whereas across the river stood Thames House, a safe haven from this nightmare. Road works Ros had told her, which caused her to call a halt to their progress. A group of workmen, who according to the van that was parked in a layby worked for Clifford and Jones, were hanging coloured lights between the trees, which seemed an odd thing to do considering that it was the end of April.

'Getting ready for Christmas?' asked Ben jokingly, as they lent their bikes against the railings on the pretext of having a rest and John reached for his phone.

'Queen's Birthday mate, they'll have decorations everywhere, I'm off to a party at the mother in laws, God knows why,' was the answer he got from the man that introduced himself as Chris.

'What's that then?' John asked, pointing to an area that had been cordoned off, only to be told that it was a feeding station for the runners and that there would be dozens of them along the route, not to mention all the street vendors that would be setting themselves up, to feed the thousands of onlookers.

* * *

We've got absolutely no chance of monitoring the entire route,' Jo told Ros and Alec, when the three of them were sitting in Ros's Office sharing a pizza, having watched Malcolm and Tariq disappear through the pods to move Harry and Ruth.

'Then we need to go through that list again, identify those who have left the service and why, even those that Harry can't remember. See if any of them are amongst the runners or part of a support team?' Alec told them.

'The organisers, surely we can dismiss them can't we, or do you think we should give them a cursory glance and what about the street vendors, there has to be an approved list doesn't there?' Ros added to the already growing list of to do things.

'Hang on a moment, what time does it get dark?' Alec asked them, cutting across what Ros was saying by pointing to a group of the photos that Jo was calling up on the screen.

'Nine give or take, why?' Ros asked him.

'Because I know what they're going to do, it's ingenious in its simplicity,' he told them, 'pass me those lists.'


	10. Chapter 10

'There's nothing more that we can do today, but first thing tomorrow morning, you and I are going to make a trip to Clifford and Jones,' Ros said, turning her attention back to Alec, before switching off her laptop and telling them both to go home and get a good night's sleep.

After what had already been a very long and exhausting day, especially for Jo, Alec's insistence that Clifford and Jones Electrical Installations might not be what they seemed, saw her glancing round an almost deserted grid before heading into the small kitchenette to make herself a coffee. Twenty six plus miles on a bike and she was pretty sure that her legs had deserted her. Before she headed home she needed caffeine and a breather and surely life wouldn't begrudge her those would they? Dragging herself up the stone stairs that led to the roof terrace, she pushed open the ridiculously heavy door and taking a deep breath, walked the short distance to the railings and gazed out over the city, which despite the lateness of the hour was still vibrant and buzzing. Even though Harry and Ruth would be holed up in their nice new safe house by now and it had been over two years since they'd frequented this space, she felt like an intruder who had barged her way into what was still essentially theirs. The roof terrace had belonged to them, pure and simple, everyone had known it and if Harry and Ruth were missing, then heaven help anyone who was sent to find them. Was this where he had asked her out that first time, what had he said, had he dared to kiss her? She liked to think so. Had Ruth hesitated before she'd said yes, possibly, probably? Maybe one day she'd get the chance to ask her and tell her how envious she was that she'd found someone that truly loved her, whereas she was still stumbling around in the darkness, with nothing to cling onto apart from her job.

* * *

Malcolm stepped out of the lift, reluctantly was the best way to describe it.

'I hope that you're here to tell me that they're safely installed?' Ros asked him, having opened her front door and found him standing on her doorstep, at the time when she'd been expecting him and Tariq to be moving Harry and Ruth to their new location.

'I'm presuming so,' he told her, handing her the note that Harry had written and addressed to him, and then going on to explain that the reason he'd come in person rather than phone, was that he was worried that there might be a security risk.

'What the hell's he playing at, is this genuine Malcolm?' she asked him, waving the note in the air as though he was a schoolboy who'd come home with a note for his mother, telling her that he'd been naughty. Reluctantly crossing the threshold, he followed her into what to Malcolm's eye was the most unwelcoming home he'd seen, before perching uncomfortably on the edge of Ros's copious and cushion filled sofa, with a glass of whatever Ros had given him clutched in his hand.

'Oh absolutely, it's Harry's handwriting without a doubt and the flat was spotlessly tidy including the fridge and Tariq's looked at the cctv and they're clearly not being forced to get into the taxi,' he hoped answered her question.

'And now I suppose you're going to tell me that you've got no idea where they might have gone?' wasn't a question that he could answer without lying. The clue was in the note and was one that he and Harry had devised years ago, should either of them need a bolt hole. If Harry thought it necessary to avoid another safe house in favour of something that he owned and had entrusted him with the information, then he wasn't going to breach that confidence to anyone, not even to Ros.

After Colin had died, Harry had taken him under his wing, something that none of the others had known about and when Ruth had been exiled he'd done what he considered to be his limited best to return the favour. Everyone needed a friend and away from the grid, Harry Pearce, should he be allowed to, became a very different person from the one that most people perceived him to be. He'd been deeply saddened almost to the point of breaking when he thought he'd lost Ruth and Malcolm still considered it a great privilege that he'd confided in him. Did it matter that their close friendship had been forged by drinking their way to the bottom of two bottles of whisky and fearful of what Harry might do if he left him, he'd spent the night sleeping in Harry's huge armchair whilst Harry slept it off on his sofa, no it didn't, because it had bound him to Harry in a way like none other, not even to Colin.

'At a guess, I'd say that since our system's been breached, Harry imagines that it will happen again. I'm sure that he'll call you in the morning to explain,' was as far as he got, before Ro's expression changed to one that said bollocks Malcolm, you surely don't expect me to believe that?

'Well I don't buy it Malcolm, you're a rubbish liar and you know exactly where they are. But if this is how Harry wants to play it and he's prepared to let you visit them and you're prepared to do it, then so be it,' was a far less sarcastic response than Malcolm was expecting.

'Thanks,' he told her.

* * *

 **Six hours earlier.**

Packing wasn't going to take them long, so why Harry insisted that they start the moment that Jo left, begged a question. Apart from their clothes, they had very few personal belongings other than what had been squirreled in.

'Trust me with this one Ruth, it's going to be so much safer where we're going,' was the answer that he gave her and for now she accepted without question. If she couldn't trust Harry then who could she trust? Jo's insistence that Ros thought she might be targeted again had been a huge hit to her confidence and although she'd done her best to hide it and draw support from Harry, her resolve to hold it together, had become as strong as a beach that was covered in quicksand. She'd been resurrected for Christ's sake, how on earth could that have happened? There was someone out there that had the same skills as she had and could break into systems and bring up information that had been closed down and buried for years. Whoever it was had to be an analyst and someone that she or Harry had worked with, no one else would have the knowledge that was required. But breaking down and throwing herself into Harry's arms and pleading with him to take her back to Boston wouldn't solve anything, she needed to pretend at least until they were safely ensconced wherever Harry was taking her, that she was still his calm and capable Ruth.

'I'll start with the fridge and then clean round,' she told him, needing to get her teeth into something that she could vent her fear and anger on and was less mundane than packing their cases and personal belongings, or he realised how distressed she was, which wouldn't solve anything.

If there was one thing that she hated more than anything else, it was tackling housework. Her kitchens and bathrooms she'd been fastidious about, which she put down to the fact that she'd spent a lot of her childhood with her granny who had quoted ad nauseam, stories about germs taking lives, but when it came to anywhere else, it was a case of what doesn't get done today can be done tomorrow.

'You only move dust around sweetheart,' she'd told her, 'as soon as you turn your back, it'll be there again,' and at that very informative that stage of Ruth's life, her granny had been her best friend.

* * *

Harry had made up his mind even as Jo had been talking, that moving him and Ruth into another small flat or less than comfortable safe house with no outside space wasn't an option, or to be more precise, it wasn't going to happen. They'd already spent over three weeks cooped up in this tiny flat with virtually no fresh air, and if you ignored the _benefits_ that they'd been enjoying, they'd been deprived of everything that amounted to normal. Jo's visits had been necessary, he didn't deny that, but surely Ros could appreciate that spending each and every evening eating their dinner with her, was depriving him and Ruth of what Harry had now come to consider as a special time of day.

As long as Malcolm had understood his message and could convince Ros that they were safe, surely she'd be pleased? Rather than spending her time worrying about them, she'd be able to concentrate full time on solving the case. Putting an end to this fiasco without his help would be seen as a huge achievement on her part, but in the meantime if they were needed, they'd still have their encrypted link to Tariq.

First things first though, he needed to convince Ruth that the over -zealous attack on the kitchen sink that he could hear going on in the background wasn't necessary, or fooling him for a minute. In the past, he might have been inept when it came to reading the signs that women were putting out, but in Ruth's case he'd had years of practise, so apart from the still unspoken where do we go from here that he hadn't asked so she hadn't answered, he truly believed that he knew her almost as well as he knew himself.

His cause was helped by the fact that by the time that he'd packed their cases and reached the kitchen, Ruth had lost the battle with the cleaning and had convinced herself that what she knew to be her irrational yet genuine fear was justified. Strong and dependable had been replaced by sobbing, as she clung to the sink as though if she didn't, she'd be sucked down the plughole. The old Harry he told himself, as he stood in the doorway and watched her heaving shoulders would have rushed over, pulled her into his arms and told her that everything was going to be fine, but Ruth wasn't a child or someone who was stupid enough to believe that, and would tell him so. Maybe words weren't necessary and actions would be sufficient? He hoped so, because he'd ordered their taxi and they were rapidly running out of time.

'Ruth' and one step forward was all it took, before she turned round and flung herself at him, apologising because her nose was running and that her tears were soaking his shirt, as he attempted to reach behind her and retrieve the box of tissues that she was demanding.

She must have been going hammer and tongs he realised, because the fridge had been emptied and the kitchen was spotless. All he had to do now was to convince her to put him down for long enough so that they could get the rest of their stuff close to the door for when the taxi arrived. Before that though there was still time for him to hold her until she calmed, there would be plenty of time for talking things through later.

'It's all been a bit last minute and we're both tired,' Harry told the taxi driver, by way of explanation as to why Ruth was looking so exhausted as they loaded everything into the taxi.

'Moving's never easy is it mate, it took us weeks before we got settled, but you'll be fine after a good night's sleep you'll see,' from the taxi driver, elicited a weak smile from Ruth who was already feeling better, but whose eyes couldn't disguise the fact that she'd been crying.

Her attempt to get Harry to tell her where they were going had got her no further than I hope you'll like it, so by the time that they took a full sweep around Portman Square and then turned into a gated side road that indicated that it was a _resident's only zone_ , she was still none the wiser. Whatever she'd expected, however much thought she'd put into it, even Ruth Evershed at her very best would never have come up with what she saw when Harry unlocked the front door.

'It used to be my Dad's house,' he told her, as they carried the last of their boxes into the kitchen, and switched on the kettle for the inevitable cup of tea. 'Catherine stays here occasionally when she's in London, but apart from her, the only person that knows that this is mine is Malcolm.'

'Why?' Ruth asked him, still wondering how it was possible that Harry had never mentioned this house before, especially to her.

'For an occasion such as this, and no I've never brought anyone else here,' he told her, clarifying what he meant, 'although up until now I never dared to believe that I'd ever get the chance to bring you here, do you like it?' was the most ridiculous question that he could have asked her, given that she'd lost her home when she'd been exiled, had what she considered to be the smallest flat in the world in Boston, and then for the last three weeks had been hiding away in a shoebox compared to this.

But she knew Harry, and there was so much more behind his question than just a simple enquiry, but as they'd only walked down the hall and into the kitchen, she couldn't really answer his question honestly, and yes wasn't going to be enough. Lost for an appropriate reply, she kissed him in a way that she hoped he'd realise meant she did.

'Dinner this evening is going to be for two, no interruptions,' he promised her, as they carried their bags upstairs before leaving her to explore and unpack, what in all senses of the word was a home.

'Oh that, my Dad had his moments, he was a bit of a devil,' he told her with a real glint of affection in his eyes, when she questioned that size of the bed that was in the room that Harry had said was theirs. She'd read Harry's file more times than she cared to remember and there had been no mention of his parents. Maybe she'd be able to get him to elaborate later, but for now she needed to unpack, have a shower or better still a bath and change as Harry had suggested, whilst he prepared dinner.

If Malcolm was the only other person who knew that this was Harry's house, then the large basket of toiletries that were tidily stacked in the corner of the bathroom were Catherine's she concluded, as she lay back in the bath and closed her eyes. Showers were all well and good, but to really be able to relax and let the troubles of the day disappear, there was nothing like a long soak in the bath and it was over two years since she'd been able to do that.

She'd barely got comfortable before,'Do you fancy a glass of wine?' asked an expectant and the most familiar of voices from outside the door, as she contemplated the fact that up until now, unless she was stupid enough to say no thank you, that Harry and she had never seen each other without their clothes other than when they'd been in bed. At this precise moment, he was presumably standing outside the door fully clothed, whereas she in a nutshell was naked as the day she'd been born. For a moment she wished she had Ros's courage. Had she been required or wanted to do it, she'd have shouted come in without hesitation, although hopefully not to Harry. But she wasn't Ros, and this _them_ was all very new and Harry had promised her that they could take things at her pace, so she slipped as far as she could beneath the water without actually drowning and looked down to ensure that the bubbles were covering all but her shoulders, before she called come in.

If Harry felt overwhelmed by what her saw or had any desires other than to deliver Ruth a glass of wine before he headed back down the stairs to continue preparing dinner, he thought that he'd made a dam good fist of hiding it. He'd lingered just long enough so that his eyes could feast on what he could see of Ruth's dripping wet hair and body and the tiny droplets of water that were tracking their merry way through her cleavage, that had appeared as if by magic just for him, when she'd lent across to take the glass that he'd held just teasingly out of her reach. If it hadn't been for his promise that they'd take their relationship at her pace, certainly until the op was over and the fact that the veggies needed his attention, he'd have followed in his Dad's footsteps and to hell with the consequences. How on earth he was going to stick to his promise, now that they were here without interruptions and where he knew they were safe and secure, was another question entirely.

'Veggies,' he managed, 'see you when you're ready,' and with that the door closed behind him.

Ruth lay back, sipping her wine with a huge smile on her face and her mind awash with thoughts that mirrored Harrys, pondering if it would be too early if she suggested that she wanted to take another bath before they went to bed. She might not be Ros and she certainly was Juliet bloody Shaw, but life was too bloody short so to hell with taking things slowly and at her pace. Poor Harry he'd done his best, but _veggies_ and _I'll see you when you're ready_ , when his eyes had been raking across her breasts and more besides in his imagination, if the state of his breathing had been anything to go by, just wasn't fair.

* * *

Once Malcolm had left, Ros lent back and closed her eyes, wanting to take stock before she went to bed. Harry was right in what he'd done and the less people that knew where he and Ruth were the better. Jo's constant comings and goings might well be being monitored and if he knew somewhere that was off the radar which he considered safer, then she had to trust in his instincts. Alec's insistence that the street lighting or lack of was something that they needed to consider could wait until the morning, as could the issue of the list and who posed the greatest threat and why. Now it would be Malcolm rather than Jo who went to visit Harry. Jo, Ben and his crew of helpers were all standing by, waiting for her instructions which depending what happened in the morning might see them scouring the route again for anything else that needed to be tagged up as suspicious. Which left Tariq, the baby in all this, the only one that she didn't have to worry about, beavering away at his desk with whatever she demanded of him.


	11. Chapter 11

If Ros Myers told you to jump, you didn't ask how high, so it was shortly after seven in the morning, a time when Alec would have normally been sleeping off the excesses of the previous evening's exertions, that he dragged himself down the final few steps into the bowels of the underground car park at Thames House, where Harry's recently delivered but as yet driven brand new Range Rover stood ready and waiting. The early morning rush hour traffic in London could be a nightmare and Ros was determined that they would be at their destination as the doors opened. Dodgy or not, she wanted them to use the element of surprise.

The short approach road that led to the premises of Messrs Clifford and Jones, Electrical Contractors to the Boroughs of Westminster and Kensington, as the large billboard suggested, gave the impression that they were exactly that. Those who were less than legit and given the right incentives would undertake anything that was offered to them, were far more likely to be found in shabby and litter infested back streets, lined with heavily padlocked garages, the contents of which could be guaranteed dubious to say the least.

Ros and Alec, whose legends, were that they were HM government inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive with a brief to visit all the companies that in any way were involved in the setting up of the London Marathon, made a quick decision to change tack, and to use rather than intimidate whoever they got to speak to. So it was Mr and Mrs Kirby-Wilde whose daughter Lucinda was having a summer wedding reception in the garden of their large house in Mayfair, who parked Harry's car outside the very tidy premises and walked arm in arm and through the door.

'Alexander and I,' said Ros, in a voice that sounded as though she was one of the minor Royals, or at least she believed she was, 'want nothing but the best for our daughter don't we darling? And you've come to us highly recommended.'

Mandy, the receptionist as she'd introduced herself was still struggling to understand Ros's pronouncement of 'you've come to us,' when in her opinion it should have been the other way round. Perhaps this was the way toffs said things? She didn't quite curtsy, although Alec was certain that she'd been about to, before she turned and fled in search of her boss.

Having waited a few moments, long enough for Tariq to have confirmed that he and Malcolm had them on comms, Mandy returned and escorted them through to the inner sanctum where they were supplied with two cups of coffee, that were a great deal better than they were afforded on the grid.

Giving Alec a nudge, sufficient that Mr Clifford winced and thanked his lucky stars that he wasn't married to this frightful woman, Alec stepped up to the plate.

'So tell me again, I'm a little slow when it comes to understanding technical things. Are you saying that we can't just plug into the mains supply?' he asked Mr Clifford, who by then had explained that if they wanted his company to install as many lights as they'd suggested, which in his mind had turned their garden into the size of a football pitch and was going to be a very lucrative job could they capture it, that they'd need several generators or they'd blow their entire street. But in an effort to get the message over and leave no doubt in the minds of the two numskulls that were sitting in front of him, he'd added the national grid, and if that happened then they'd quite probably be arrested.

'Good gracious darling that would be dreadful,' replied Ros, in a voice that inferred that although she didn't have a clue what he was talking about, she was pretending that she did.

It took another well worth twenty minutes of side tracking before Tariq and Malcolm confirmed to Ros that they had the information that they needed, as a happy and patient Mr Clifford who by now had been assured that he was _their_ _man_ , had explained in words of one syllable, how the electricity that supplied power to the street lighting across London or more specifically along the Embankment was generated, or could be switched off in the case of an emergency.

'Thank you so much for showing us these, they've been most helpful, but we've kept you long enough we should be going,' Alec told their host, watching his face fall. Having produced diagrams from the filing cabinets behind his desk that he'd spread across the table, he was now getting into his stride, as were Tariq and Malcolm who were already well into their analysis.

'We'll be in touch,' cooed Ros, with a quick glance back, before tucking her hand back in the crook of Alec's arm and bundling him out of the building.

* * *

'Doghouse three, fifteen minutes,' she barked into her phone at Jo, who up until then, had been whiling away the time with Ben and John by leaning on the wall that breached the North Bank of the Thames, enjoying a coffee and watching the already packed pleasure boats wending their way up and down the river, creating a wave of foam in their wake.

The doghouse was in this case a disused underground car park, which to all intents and purposes given that it was within the Borough of Westminster should have been refurbished. In what was becoming an increasingly difficult financial climate across the globe, even the back streets of one of their capitals most salubrious boroughs wasn't immune to degeneration so it seemed.

'Malcolm we're here, can you hear us?' was followed by confirmation that he could and with a suggestion that produced a huge sigh of resignation from Jo.

'Given the timescale of the race and for maximum effect, we now have to assume that the attack will be staged between those two bridges,' he told them, as the plan of the embankment between Westminster and St. Paul's Cathedral appeared on Ros's phone, 'but just in case we're wrong, my suggestion would be that you ride the full length of the course again.'

'What if?' asked Ben, waiting for Ros to tell him that this was her decision, so lump it. He'd spent the previous day with an increasingly exhausted Jo and despite the fact that she was probably fitter than he was, she wasn't a cyclist. Another 26 miles, so soon after the last one and she'd probably end up hospitalised and Ros would be minus her section chief. If Jo wasn't prepared to say something, then he had to.

'Well go on then, we don't have all day.' Ros urged him.

'If we split ourselves into two teams and use John's mates to help us, we could cycle the course from both ends and meet in the middle, it would be a great time saver what do you think?' He suggested.

Ros looked to Alec for his reaction, knowing that a mistake or something missed at this late stage could prove catastrophic.

'Here,' she finally said,' handing over some money, 'buy a stack of energy bars and bottled water, round up the troops and make it absolutely clear to all of them that this is a matter of national security and that they have to be meticulous in their search. Any who want to opt out if they don't feel comfortable, they do it now, that's fine, there will be no comeback,' she assured them.

Should they find anything, then she or Ben were to call the grid and speak to Tariq who had the plans and would report to her and Alec, rounded off her instructions as she wished them good luck. She and Alec needed to get back to the grid to relieve Malcolm so that he could visit Harry and Ruth.

'Please tell me you don't think I've just made a huge mistake?' she asked Alec, as they stood and watched the others ride away.

* * *

When Ruth had opened her eyes an hour earlier, the infinitely steadier rise and fall of Harry's chest, had re affirmed how much she loved the man that was sleeping untroubled beside her. Complex and full of contrasts, but he was lovely and hers to the very depths of her soul. Too tired after the emotions of the day, her previous evening's ambition of a wild night of passion had been overtaken by exhaustion, as they'd adjusted to the new and much larger bed, with Harry telling her tales that were literally _of the unexpected_.

'Yes he is, did I imply otherwise?' had been Harry's response to Ruth's surprise that his father was still alive and kicking, before going on to explain to her that he'd gone back to Yorkshire after his mother had died and as far as he knew, was still creating havoc in a small village close to the coast. The reason that he'd never told her, was the same reason that he'd never told him about her. It was their security, pure and simple. He'd been terrified and still was that they'd be used against him and to his deep regret, in her case he'd been proved right hadn't he?

'You wait until you meet him,' had implied that over the past few weeks, Harry had not only been imagining a future with her, but that it also included a trip to meet his father. Soon after that though she must have fallen asleep, because that was as far as her memories had taken her until this morning, when Harry had opened his eyes and reeled her in.

His collection of expletives when interrupted was extensive, but in deference to Ruth and the situation that they were currently in, he went for 'please god not now _,'_ rather than something more to the point. After what he'd groaned to her several moments earlier was the most exquisite sex that he'd ever had and god how he loved her, they were lying in bed, their minds completely blown and their faces mirrored in contentment, until the doorbell rang.

When he opened the front door, Malcolm was greeted by what was affectionately referred to on the grid as Harry's I want some good news face, although even Malcolm with his non experience when it came to what went on in the bedroom, could see that Ruth scurrying down the hallway behind Harry in the direction of the bathroom, meant that he was probably in for both barrels. Still needs must, Ros had sent him and he and Harry had to have _that_ conversation, however difficult it might prove.

It had been many years since he and Harry had stood in that very same hallway and discussed the merits of using it as a safe house, long before Ruth had stumbled into his life and turned Harry's world and perception of achieving happiness on its head. It hardly seemed possible that he was back here now, in circumstances that would have seemed impossible in those days. Harry had _melted_ , _surrendered and finally accepted,_ what in Malcolm's opinion had all been down to chance, or had it?

As he followed Harry out into the garden, with the promise of a coffee as soon as Ruth had showered and changed, he knew better than to comment. This was theirs and far too beautiful for him to speculate.

The only way to approach the list and each individual on it was head on, tell it as it was, or is they decided, as Malcolm wrote down Connie James and Harry went back to the beginning and when he'd first met her. The only thing that Harry couldn't make a clear statement about because he'd never really known, was the nature of the relationship that she'd had with his friend Hugo Prince. He'd assumed that they'd been lovers, because Hugo had always implied that that's what he'd wanted and as it had been back in the cold war days when they'd all been adrenalin fuelled to the point where sex was the only release, he'd guessed rather than known. As far as he could remember, he and Hugo had spent most of their evenings chatting over a drink and as Hugo had died soon after they came home, maybe it hadn't happened and in some way Connie blamed him for that?

'I absolutely refuse to elaborate on my relationship with Juliet,' he told Malcolm, 'other than to say she's used it on more than one occasion to blackmail me into getting what she's wanted.'

Malcolm again said nothing, but duly wrote this down.

Zoe who had been living in Chile for the best part of five years was an entirely different kettle of fish and surely out of the frame. Malcolm knew that Harry had bent the rules spectacularly to get her out of the country, rather than face a long prison sentence, so why would she have any reason to conspire against him? It seemed unlikely and something on which they both agreed.

In Tessa's case he hadn't been so lenient. The moment that Zoe had confessed that she'd tried to bribe her with ten thousand pounds, to get her to hide the fact that she'd been accumulating a huge amount of money by inventing bogus assets, he'd unceremoniously got shot of her. There was certainly a link between her and Zoe, but only a tenuous one.

As for the others on the list, they were primarily the analysts that had followed Ruth's departure and had been dismissed or left because they'd borne the brunt of his grief and subsequent temper.

That pretty much brought them up to date and to the moment when Ruth arrived with their coffee, whether by design or not, Malcolm wasn't sure. It had been several weeks since he'd last seen her and he was about to relieve her of the tray that she was carrying, when Harry beat him to it, leaping to his feet, his whole body language changing and the stressed expression that had adorned his face during the time that they'd been talking about colleagues, gone. It was amazing this power that Ruth held over him that she clearly didn't recognise.

'I'll have my coffee and then leave you in peace, I need to get this back to Ros,' he suggested, until Ruth halted his progress by inviting him to stay for a while longer.

Whether or not he minded, it clearly didn't show up in Harry's expression, or when she suggested that if he didn't mind she'd quite like to take a look at what he'd written. 'You never know, I might be able to spot something you've missed,' she told them, without any motive other than to help. Having passed over the paper and accompanying notes they left her to concentrate without distraction, Harry suggesting that he and Malcolm head off down the garden, on the pretence of stretching their legs.

'Whatever she reads Harry, it won't change how she feels about you, you don't have to worry,' Malcolm told him, which included her not knowing until now, that Juliet Shaw had tried to blackmail him on numerous occasions.

* * *

Concentrate Ruth she told herself, smoothing out the pages in front of her, and after having taking a drink of tea and with a slice of toast in her other hand, she sat down and began to read, making notes on a separate piece of paper as she did so.

Anything prior to her arrival and since she'd been exiled she was taking extra time over. It was perhaps her one chance to make a difference, although as always, she couldn't quite reconcile herself to the fact that perhaps Juliet Shaw wasn't involved, especially now that she had evidence that she'd attempted to blackmail Harry. If she was capable of blackmail, then surely she was capable of anything? It was clear as the nose on her face that Juliet had known how she felt about Harry, so could Juliet be the reason that she'd reappeared on this list?

Connie, Tessa Phillips and an analyst called Andrea Robinson, none of whom she'd met, made up the rest. Connie she knew about, Tessa she didn't and it would mean asking Harry more questions. If Andrea had been sent back to GCHQ as Malcolm's notes suggested, then she would be easy to track down. She might be registered as dead, but she still had connections that she could approach.

There were just too many questions to which she didn't have an answer and as she looked up, Harry and Malcolm were walking back towards her, the uncertainty back in Harry's eyes. 'Bugger this,' she said louder than she intended, surely after what had happened this morning, he wasn't imagining that she'd be thrown by a past that was just that. Bull by the horns time Ruth, she decided, flashing him one of her most glorious smiles.

'Never in any doubt,' whispered Malcolm.

* * *

Leaving them alone to put their heads together and try and make some sense of what was going on, Malcolm headed into the kitchen to make lunch.

'Sandwiches it is then,' he'd said, when Harry pointed out that the fridge was almost empty and someone needed to get them some shopping. 'Make a list,' had come with a wry smile, 'hopefully easier to decipher that that one.'

'Juliet Harry. How well do you know her, professionally I mean?' started the conversation.

'Well she's always been ambitious and will go to any lengths to achieve it, much more so than me.'

'So who ended your relationship?'

'Neither of us, it just petered out. I've told you this before.'

'Yes I know you have, but not in this context,' she pressed him, 'She couldn't be holding a grudge of any sort or regrets that you haven't told me about?' She hoped didn't sound too much like an accusation.

'You should have been here when I was discussing this with Malcolm,' he told her.

'But I wasn't, and besides which, Malcolm doesn't know what I know about you and Juliet does he?'

Harry paused, Ruth waited. She needed to know that Juliet Shaw was history, anything else she could cope with. Harry finally said no.

'So not Juliet, we can eliminate her?' She breathed a sigh of relief and he nodded his head.

They moved on to Connie, who Harry was still struggling to believe had instigated him being branded a traitor, but then her behaviour told him otherwise. Ros had once told him that they were all motivated by his opinions and maybe now that she was section head, she was having the same influence.

'Could she have come into contact with Tessa at any time and where does she fit in?' asked Ruth, who was already one step ahead of where Harry had stalled.

'Well you replaced Tessa,' 'and Connie followed me and found out about you and I Harry,' Ruth finished the sentence for him, 'I'm the link in this Harry, that's why I'm on that list.'


	12. Chapter 12

Old habits die hard, and as Ruth finished his sentence, the light came on, briefly, _far too_ briefly for Harry. It was a beautiful Monday morning, they were together again, they were on the grid, and Ruth, his beautiful and brilliant Ruth, had bounced her way into his office, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm and the words tumbling like a waterfall, telling him that she'd found the answer to their latest problem. And then Ros had called.

'And you're going to suggest _what_ Harry? That Ruth does a bit of gardening while you're here? Are you completely insane?' Was her response to him suggesting that as she was so obviously overstretched, then maybe he should come on to the grid for what remained of the day and help out. That was of course until he'd looked up and seen Ruth's stricken face, and Malcolm looking at him as if to say, l give up, before he'd grabbed their shopping list and headed out through the door, muttering something that sounded remarkably similar to what Ros had said.

'Work together for Christs sake it's what you do best isn't it, find Tessa for me, we'll sort out the rest,' and Ros was gone.

'Keep me informed Rosalind,' she failed to hear, the phone had been put down.

'Oops,' didn't seem appropriate, 'I'm an idiot, I love you and I'm sorry Ruth,' did and was what he went for.

She refrained from telling him that he was and reminding him that it had been his idea and that the whole point of them being there together, in a house that none of the protagonists could possibly know about, was to keep them both safe. He knew that he didn't need her to tell him, it had been just a moment's aberration on his part. So instead, she just picked up the book that she'd been reading the previous evening and walked back out into the garden waiting for him to join her.

The peace offering when it arrived came in the form of a freshly made cup of tea and a packet of her favourite chocolate biscuits, along with an envelope that she supposed Malcolm must have brought with him from the grid. It was battered around the edges and had been sealed with very sturdy tape, not very well, as though it had been done in a hurry.

Harry's expression was one of contrition, mixed with a hint of nervous anticipation and Ruth presumed that he was still worrying about what he'd suggested to Ros.

'It's fine Harry you can stop worrying, I don't expect you to be able to change the habits of a lifetime after only three weeks,' she encouraged him, budging up on the swing seat, where she'd settled herself in the morning's sunshine.

Swinging back and forth wasn't ideal when you were preparing yourself for an adult conversation that involved putting to bed what was left of your past life and discussing building a future together with the woman you loved, whilst at the same time worrying about what the rest of your team were doing, so Harry engaged the brake.

'Wouldn't want you to spill your tea or be sick,' he joked nervously, 'besides which.'

Ruth didn't like surprises, but Harry's expression had changed and his breathing had increased, so much so that she put aside her tea and tugged at the well - worn tape, assuming that he wanted her to see what was in the envelope.

'It was just frantic on the grid the day after you _died_ ,' stilled her fingers and forced her to look back up at him. It was the only subject that still hung in the air between them, but up until then had been kept to one side. It would have meant talking about that dreadful day and colleagues that were no longer with them and they'd had more than enough pain in their own separate lives to work their way through, before they got around to that.

'I was at home, trying to find a reason to go into work, when without you there wasn't one,' was something so profoundly unlike Harry, that Ruth felt the breath still in her chest and the need for her hands to disappear between his. I was just about to take myself out for a walk with Scarlet, the alternative was far too dark to contemplate, when the phone rang. For one glorious but ridiculous moment I thought it was you, but it was Adam ringing me to say that Mace's cronies were already heading to your house and if I needed to get rid of any evidence that I'd been there, then I needed to be quick. My first reaction was to tell him that there wasn't, well not in the way that he was inferring, other than when I'd made you that wretched cup of tea, when my whole being was telling me that I should hold you. Then I suddenly remembered the other time.'

Ruth had stopped listening when he'd said that he'd wanted to hold her, when she'd countered what he'd been doing by making some totally ridiculous remark about sweet tea being English. Beyond that she had no idea what he was talking about, but this conversation was clearly important to him, so she just nodded and waited for him to continue.

'Do you remember that night when you called me and asked me to come over, when Gary Hicks was there?' he asked her.

She did, as vividly as he obviously did, most especially because of the tone of his reply. 'To yours, now?' he'd asked her, with so much more than a straightforward question in his voice.

'It was during that conversation, when what I wrongly presumed was an invitation that didn't involve work, that I realised I was falling in love with you,' she hadn't been expecting, as she desperately tried to reboot her memory back to that evening and remember every single detail.

Up until then there had been plenty of, for want of a better expression, meaningful glances and moments when he'd turned to her for support, but she'd always assumed that it was her analytical skills and her ability to read people and situations that had formed their strong bond and friendly mutual attraction, but that he was already falling in love with her, absolutely not.

Me too she thought giving him a small smile, pleased that she'd got it wrong, but this conversation could so easily spiral into maudlin and head them towards another of their, we've wasted so much time conversations, so she turned her attention away from his eyes and back to the envelope.

Any chance of stopping what he so obviously needed to tell her was gone, as he held her hands even tighter and continued without pausing, reverting back to the day after she sailed away and Adam had called him.

'I went to your house Ruth, I went upstairs which I didn't need to of course, but it made me feel closer to you and in a sense feel as though I was protecting you from their grubby little fingers. I was tempted to stay there and to hell with it, but what would that have achieved other than to give those bastards even more satisfaction. That's all I managed to retrieve before they broke the door down and I had to high tail it out of there, I'm so sorry,' he told her, nodding towards the envelope.

There was absolutely nothing of any value, but to Ruth, the contents of the envelope was priceless. Harry needing to seek out her bedroom because he'd wanted to feel closer to her, and here she was, looking at items from almost every meaningful decade of her life.

Two photographs, one of which was of her cuddling fidget and the another with her father on a beach in Devon when she'd been small and a small prayer book that her grandmother had given her on the day she'd been confirmed, he'd found in a drawer. But most importantly, at the moment when for the first time they were discussing how her exile had impacted on both of them, was the card that Harry had left on her desk, a few days after he'd taken her out to dinner.

You win, New York it is, Harry x, he'd written. It was the single most important item and which had stood on her bedside table.

'Even after what you'd told me, you kept it?' was another loaded question, but it gave her the opportunity to finally confess to him her deepest regrets and he so deserved to hear the truth.

'It was the kiss at the end that did it, besides which, it was never in doubt that this was what I wanted Harry, you must have realised that, despite me telling you otherwise. You have no idea how many times during the weeks that followed that night, that I picked up and put down the phone, or walked into your office determined to tell you that I'd changed my mind. I was a coward Harry and then it was too late and I'm so very very sorry.'

He thought about telling her that he was the coward not her. That he should have listened to her concerns about Maudsley, stuck to protocol and not insisted that she kept this between themselves, but most of all he should have found a way to protect her and taken the wrap, whatever the outcome. But it was pointless and would have continued a conversation that needed putting to bed. They were here, they were together and that was what mattered.

'It's just another of our _once upon a time_ stories that we can't change Ruth, what counts is today and the future and I'd like to think that we can talk about that?'

She wanted to, she really did, but there was this tiny box in her head where she stored her dreams, that wasn't quite ready to be opened.

'Can we just leave the rest of the story until this Op is over Harry?' wasn't what he wanted to hear, but she was begging him to hear her out. 'Despite what I've said and I know that I'm being irrational, but I'm still scared Harry. There have been hundreds of moments in my head when we've been together like this and yours too so it seems, even when I was away. I want whatever it is that you want Harry, wherever you want that to be, but until this is over and we can walk through that door together without having to look over our shoulders, please can we just stay in the moment?'

Ruth didn't usually go in for long speeches, well not ones that wrapped up so clearly what she was feeling and wanted, but she looked too serious and exhausted for him to make anything other than a sensible comment.

'Whatever you feel happiest with Ruth.' he told her.

* * *

The sun was shining, the birds were singing and life was about as good as it got. With very little research and a few behind closed door conversations, the discovery that so many other people had a grudge against Harry Pearce, had made it so much easier to piece their plan together. Who would have thought that Collingwood, poor dead and disgraced soul that he now was, or Myers for that matter, could have paved the way to an idea that had first festered and now grown to be delicious.

It was all going to plan and with this morning's call to say that they were nearly there, just one final meeting before the day, 'to seal the deal,' Connie had said, and then they would be able to wave goodbye section D, and pave the way to a future where they had control over whatever they wanted. Connie it was rumoured was planning to run for the border, although none of them had dared to ask her which one. What the rest of them intended doing mattered not one jot, when you were the one planning on pulling the strings. Power was everything and he was almost within touching distance.

Give Ros Myers her due, she'd stepped up to the plate pretty well, but she didn't have Harry's tenacity or his one-time analyst or supposed lover to help her, although fortunately nor did Harry the poor bastard. They'd done their research and she was clearly still in the States, hopefully still whittling her life away, with absolutely no chance of coming home or seeing her precious Harry again.

The door opened and another cup of coffee duly arrived on his desk. It brought everything into perspective and with it the realisation that you once you achieved power with a vision that appealed to those who perceived they'd been wronged, you could almost imagine yourself becoming immortalised. Better still his disciples were all women and how ironic was that if you were planning on putting an end to the reign of Sir Harry Pearce.

The clock struck one, happy days. A gentle stroll through the park could be followed by a relaxing afternoon and then just another couple of days to wait before the inevitable. The door opened and closed again. The cup had disappeared without a word.

* * *

Four of John's contacts had accepted Ros's offer and had opted out. Two because they'd never been on a bicycle and the others because despite the gravity of the situation, they had unbreakable appointments, one of which was a meeting with his social worker. All however had signed up for the race itself, agreeing they'd join it at various points along the route, to be determined later, depending on what if anything they found today. So it was Ben with two of John's pals who headed down river towards Greenwich Park, while Jo with John and another asset called Rob, headed towards Buckingham Palace and the Mall.

Ben had a far greater distance to travel to his starting point than she did, so taking an alternative route in order to use up some of the time, she crossed the river again and took her charges via Westminster Abbey and then down Whitehall, past the Home Office. Alec seemed adamant that it was going to be the embankment that would be targeted, but none the less with time on their hands, there didn't seem to be any harm in checking the non - descript and up until now unnoticed electricity junction boxes that lined the pavements in what was essentially the heart of London.

Having followed Malcolm's instructions to the letter and determined that the seals hadn't been tampered with or altered in any way, they emerged at the far end of Whitehall and were just about to head in the direction of St James Park and less than two miles from the finish line, when she realised that it was time for her to touch base with Tariq. Stopping for a moment to let some tourists pass them by, her eyes were drawn to a couple who were sitting in a secluded corner of a nearby tree lined square, hidden away from any of the main thoroughfares. One of them was Nicholas Blake, deep in conversation with 'Christ he's with Connie,' she whispered to Tariq.

Pushing Rob unceremoniously into the nearest driveway, she spun John around and told him to kiss her until she told him to stop. 'It's a matter of life and death and yes I am bloody serious,' she told his questioning face. Please god they hadn't spotted her she thought, as she fumbled for her phone and with her lips locked with Johns, who unbeknown to Jo was more than willing and making the most of it, she tried to keep her concentration on Connie. Taking a photograph wasn't easy but she managed it, pinging it to Tariq with a message that said 'urgent, show this to Ros now.'

Firmly encased in John's arms it felt like an age before she eventually saw Connie and Blake shake hands and go their separate ways, by which time she'd heard Ros scream 'my office now everybody,' which amounted to Alec and Malcolm as Tariq was still sitting at his desk waiting for anymore news from her.

* * *

This changed everything or did? It was a question that Ros couldn't answer. The Home Secretary, looking as though he was involved for Christ's sake, how much deeper did this conspiracy go? She'd sat and watched him through the debacle that her father and Collingwood had wrought across London, when he'd backed Harry and Juliet to the hilt, which had included getting himself blown up in the process. Harry had told her that Blake was one of the few politicians that he'd ever trusted. A friend turned traitor, it just didn't make sense.

Less than two weeks ago he'd offered her his complete support, waxing lyrical bout Harry's worth and how concerned he was that someone had tried to eliminate him. She'd even told him how concerned she was about his own safety, well not anymore, but how to handle it was the question? Had it been anyone else she'd have called CO19 and asked them to arrest him, but this was Home Secretary with the potential to topple the government. She needed to talk to Harry.

It was another half hour before they'd thrashed out a plan. Based on input from Malcolm, they made the decision not to ring Harry - well not at this stage. Harry when his cage was rattled would need some holding down, and after this morning's performance, they weren't convinced that Ros or more importantly Ruth should be the ones faced with that.

'Another nice little job for you tomorrow morning eh Malcolm?' Ros told him.

'What do you want me to tell Jo?' asked Tariq, his face reappearing around the door.

'That she has to keep this information to herself for the moment and I want them back here now, Ben's bunch included,' she told him.

With only two days to go before the main event and as late in the day as this was, they'd come to the conclusion that this whole thing needed re jigging. They'd get everyone around the table with a firm strategy in place, explaining to them that as from this evening until the end of the race, they would in effect be employees of the Security Services, but unfortunately with non of authority that came with it. Their dummy run needed to be the dress rehearsal for Saturday's race, which was why they'd be doing it at exactly the same time this evening.

'Before that,' she told Alec and Malcolm, ' we need to take a break.'


	13. Chapter 13

They had absolutely no real proof that Blake was involved only their gut instinct, but Jo witnessing a conversation between Connie and the Home Secretary, was sufficient for Ros to have upgraded the threat level to a code red. Arresting him or Connie for that matter, she'd say what? No she had to let this play out. Sitting in Harry's chair but without the usual backing of the Home Office, the fall were it to come would be far greater, especially when they were faced with the real possibility that civilians could be hurt or worse. Not for the first time, she marvelled at Harry's ability to have done this job for so many years and not crumble under the sheer weight of its responsibility. Did the powers that be know or appreciate the full extent of his worth? She very much doubted it. Back to the here and now Rosalind she chided herself, they just needed to be sharper than their opponents and hang onto the positives that they were already several steps ahead.

* * *

They'd done as they'd been told and walked the final couple of miles on foot. Helped by a reasonably overcast early evening sky and with a well-honed technique that had helped them survive on the streets, they'd blended into the shadows like the spies that they now were. Young men who had spent months and in some cases years battling to survive on nothing but their wits, transported, if only for a short while into a world that they couldn't possibly have envisaged. Provided with new clothes, food in their bellies, but most importantly, money sufficient to sustain them or change their lives forever if they so wished, were all here at their fingertips.

Avoiding the main body of the building, Jo and Ben ushered what they were now referring to as their associates, into the bowels of Thames House via the back staircase and into one of the rarely used interrogation suites. It wasn't ideal, it wasn't by any means comfortable, but essentially it was well away from the grid and any prying eyes. One by one they filed in, first reading and then signing the official secrets act. By the time that Tariq arrived with Alec who went to join Ros at the head of the makeshift table, it was standing room only. If any of them harboured any doubts as to the seriousness of the situation, then they would surely have vanished the moment that Ros stood up. Cool and calm and with her usual air of authority that didn't broker an argument, she demanded their attention.

'Gentlemen,' she said, as the room fell silent, all bar an out of date air conditioning pump that continued to rumbled like a passing train, somewhere above her head, emitting god knows what into the atmosphere of their cramped surroundings. 'From this moment until approximately 11pm on Saturday evening, I assure you will be the most important forty eight hours of your lives so far. The full impact, should we fail to uncover what we now know to be a plot to endanger the lives of our fellow citizens, will have consequences that reach far beyond the four walls of this building,' she told them, as Alec scanned the sea of faces, looking to see if there were any amongst them that didn't appear to be taking her seriously. There weren't. Ten pairs of eyes were glued like magnets to this formidable woman, as she went on to explain what would now be a very different evening.

'We've taken into account that you may have varying physical abilities, which is no reflection on you,' she assured them, 'but to create the illusion that you're just some of the thousands ordinary competitors who are practising for Saturday's race, your bikes are being discarded in favour of jogging or walking, or a bit of mix and match would be my choice, were I asked to do it.'

As she paused, a sigh of relief and a few smiles crossed the assembled faces. This woman was human after all. 'You'll be working in pairs as a relay, each pair running or walking for five or so miles before handing on to the next one and so on, until John and Rob,' and here paused again, scanning the room for confirmation as to who they were, until two hands finally realised what she was asking and shot up, 'who it's been decided should run the final leg and cross what will be the finishing line,' she concluded, before asking if any of them had any questions before she handed over to Alec.

'It will be painstaking and time consuming, because _every_ electricity junction box along the route has to be checked,' he explained to them, at which point a picture flashed up on the screen to show what was normal and Malcolm handed out their individual route plans. 'If you spot anything at all, no matter how small or you're not confident about you call it in, we'll have a team with you within moments, do you understand?' he asked them.

Leaving Jo and Ben to sort out the last minute arrangements and to answer any questions, he and Ros headed back to the grid in search of some rest.

* * *

Unlike Malcolm and Tariq who had spent another interminably long night with their eyes glued to the monitors, Ros and Alec had manged to grab a few hours of sleep in two of the overnight rooms that were available to senior staff. Without Harry's authorisation, convincing Ron, the pig headed guardian of the keys that it was crucial that Alec stay on the grid rather than go home hadn't been easy and it was close to three am before they finally turned in, having shared an extremely tasteless pizza and a couple of beers over what had amounted to another of their 'are we really going to be able to pull this off' discussions.

Now at 7am they were back in Harry's Office. Having had a brief discussion with the troops, they were finally eating something edible that Alec had nipped out for. With Tariq asleep on the couch in the rest room, Jo and Ben had been dispatched to oversee the teams that were dismantling the devices, before they headed home for a short break. Malcolm for his sins wasn't so lucky, and was under instruction to visit Harry and Ruth as early as he felt was reasonable, to update them on what they'd discovered, but more importantly to see if Harry had any pearls of wisdom to offer.

One hour earlier.

When Ruth woke up it was barely light and the bed beside her was empty. Rolling over, the covers were still warm, so maybe Harry had just gone to the bathroom and was coming back to bed, she hoped so? She closed her eyes again, a warm and relaxing smile creeping up from deep within her, as she recalled their outpourings of the previous day and evening. So many regrets had been put to bed and 'never to be spoken of again' Harry had told her, as they'd shared far too much wine, drunk by the sheer wonder of occasion rather than what they'd consumed. Despite her telling him that she wanted to wait until the Op was over before they discussed their future, a smiling and persuasive Harry had been impossible to resist, and their conversation had inevitably drifted towards what would happen once they were free to leave.

'Options?' he'd said, his eyes full of expectation, just as they'd been that night in the restaurant, to the point where she wondered why on earth it had taken a forced incarceration, for them to be so open with each other and be having this conversation.

'New York, you promised me New York, I have it in writing,' she'd attempted as a joke, trying to stay in her seat, when he was obviously toying with her like a cat who had a mouse at the end of a piece of string and was daring it to run away, or more precisely forcing her to come towards him.

'Paris is so much closer,' he'd replied, with the same gentle tone to his voice and an unspoken 'come on Ruth how much longer can you hold out' as his hypnotic hands, with a promise of so much more played havoc with her body, strumming an equally suggestive tune on top of the table.

He was within moments of succeeding, when he realised that his overwhelming desire to seduce Ruth, had inadvertently steered the conversation away from his objective, and that these were just holidays that they were talking about. The conversation about a home and the life together, that they'd both craved for so long, wasn't one to be taken lightly and definitely not when their evening was going to end as it invariably did now, with a tumble into bed followed by a night of discovery as they continued to adjust to what and how to enjoy each other, and certainly not when they'd consumed far too much wine, to the point where they might not even make it as far as the bedroom. So reining in his enthusiasm as far as the future was concerned, it was 'there's always tomorrow Ruth, we'll talk about it in the morning,' as they headed for the stairs.

* * *

Malcolm had rung in advance this time, wisely as it so happened, because by the time that Ruth walked into the kitchen, Harry was slumped at the table with his head in his hands. In what Malcolm recognised as not only a gesture of support, but one to keep Harry in check, Ruth walked up behind him and put each of her hands on his shoulders, leaning forward until her face was close enough to kiss the top of his head. If they hadn't had him as an audience, he felt sure she'd have done it.

'Tell me, what's Ros going to do?' It was Ruth who asked the question, after Malcolm repeated that Jo had witnessed Blake in a conversation with Connie.

'Nothing for the moment other than we're going to put a tail on him,' he told them, as Ruth nodded towards him with a gesture that told him to put the kettle on.

'And after this I want a piece of him,' growled Harry, still not raising his head.

'No you don't Harry,' Ruth said so quietly, that Malcolm wondered if he'd imagined it, feeling impelled to turn away and make them all the drink that she'd suggested. Behind his back, he heard a chair scrape across the floor. Ruth had dragged hers and was sitting next to Harry, his hands now held firmly between hers on top of his knees, Harry now calmer, almost defeated.

'What kind of spook does that make me Ruth, that I've trusted a man for years, only to find out that I'm wrong?' Malcolm heard him ask her.

There was a long pause, during which time Malcolm wondered if Ruth was putting together an answer or that she simply didn't have one.

'He's a politician Harry and as you've always told us they're all devious bastards, Blake's just proved you right.'

Malcolm wasn't watching, but he was convinced that Harry had smiled.

'Sorry Malcolm, you look dreadfully tired,' Ruth eventually commented watching him cradling his coffee, and realising that as it was only just gone seven and that maybe in view of the news, that he'd been up all night. Their own dishes from the previous evening were still stacked at the end of the worktop, what on earth must Malcolm think, that they spent their entire time in bed? Had he volunteered to deliver this news, had Ros sent him, thank god it was Malcolm who surprisingly seemed to be able to cope with their crazy relationship.

'I could murder a bacon sandwich and another coffee if you could manage it,' he tentatively asked her, his lop sided grin back in place, before he went back out into the hall for the bags of groceries that he'd shopped for on his way there.

It was another hour, during which time he'd enjoyed his breakfast and explained that they'd now narrowed the list of protagonists down to four, but that it didn't include Juliet. The biggest surprise, was that one of the analysts that they'd briefly employed after Ruth had been exiled was involved. He'd been in contact with GCHQ, who in the first instance had been reluctant to tell him that she'd managed to slip through their net unnoticed, but having pressed them, they'd finally conceded that they were the ones at fault and that she was quite probably the person who had hacked into their files and had passed them on. Connie, who Ros had always suspected, they were sure about and were continuing to keep a track on, but Nicholas Blake and where the hell he fitted in and why they had no idea. All indications were that Tessa Phillips who had all the resources that they would need at her fingertips, was also implicated, but despite their efforts they still hadn't been able to trace her.

'Moving on,' he said, handing them a list of Ben's assets, before going on explain that they'd been vetted before being temporarily recruited and how without them they'd have been up the proverbial creek without a paddle. 'We've got to the stage where we don't know who to trust, not even our own,' he told them, telling them about the long hours that everybody was still working.

He then took them through what he described as the previous night's antics and what they'd found. Alec had been right and they'd found ten devices, one of which had been on Tower Bridge, which if plunged into darkness when filled with hundreds of runners and spectators, had the potential to be catastrophic. The other nine had been timed to trigger simultaneously, within a few miles of the finishing line when the bulk of the fun runners and stragglers, all running for their various chosen charities, some with their children, would be bunched tightly together. They'd concluded that the blackout in itself would result in the runners stopping, but it would take more than that to create the chaos that these people were attempting to provoke. In the current climate where terrorist factions were hitting large cities all over the world, killing innocent civilians indiscriminately, all of which were televised, what easier way was there than to replicate what was seared in people's minds, than to fire a single shot just before the lights went out. It would cause pandemonium as people ran for their lives, trampling on others as they did so, during an event that was labelled the people's race. Added to which, it was the prefect way to bring the services down, suggesting that a single gunman who should have been on their radar, could be the cause of so much harm.

'And this gunman any idea who it is?' was Harry's only question.

'One of those four presumably, it's all we've got.' Malcolm told them.

'No it's not,' said Ruth, cutting across their conversation, having realised that Blake having access to every government building along the embankment, made them the obvious place to fire off a shot.

It was all very well and good being the best analyst that the section had ever had, but when you'd just come up with the solution to discovering not only the gunman, but the building where he'd be hiding, but that it would involve watching the man that you loved and intended spending the rest of your life with, leave this safe haven to wander the corridors of Westminster, because he was not the only best qualified to do so, but could come and go unchallenged, you had one hell of a dilemma on your hands. Not only that, sods bloody law dictated that by the look on his face he knew exactly what you'd been thinking and had come to the same conclusion.

'You know I have to do it,' meant nothing to Malcolm, but everything to them, as Harry asked Malcolm to give them a moment.

Every fibre in Ruth's body was screaming at her to stop him by saying no, to buckle under the weight of her fear and to beg him to stay with her. But this went way beyond personal, it was the other Harry that she was standing in front of, it was what he did, it was what he'd spent the best part of his life fighting for. Whatever the future held for them, he was still nominally head of section D and she had to let him go, no matter what the cost or the overwhelming fear that she was going to lose him.

'Ring Ros and tell her I'm on my way and whatever you do Malcolm, don't let Ruth out of your sight for a single moment,' he called back down the hall. as she followed him.

'I'll be fine, I'll be back before you know it,' he whispered and then kissed her, as they clung to each other for reassurance.

She wanted to tell him not to get shot, to tell him that she loved him, she'd even marry him if he asked her, but the words were sticking in her throat and she could feel the tears coming.

'I must go Ruth,' he urged her, but with a look of such sadness that encompassed everything that they were both feeling, before his kissed her one last time and was gone.


	14. Chapter 14

The door had opened and closed again so quietly, that for a moment Malcolm wondered if perhaps he'd imagined it, and that Harry had changed his mind and was still here. But as the seconds turned into minutes until the owner of a single set of footsteps appeared, he knew that any attempt to calm or convince Ruth that Harry was going to be walking back through the door any time soon would be pointless.

He tried persuading her to come back into the kitchen and eat something, anything to take to take away her pain and convince her that Harry wasn't going to get himself killed.

'He'll be fine Ruth, Harry knows how to take care of himself,' was so ridiculously inadequate, as a look that anyone who didn't know Ruth as well as he hoped he did, fired back as though she'd been shot and was trying to defend herself.

Danny, Colin, Zaf, Adam and Fiona had all perished in the few short years since Ruth had first arrived at Thames House. The list of funerals had been endless and he knew exactly where Ruth's mind had headed. To a poem and a reading that invariably he would be asked to read and she'd be expected to sit through, unmoved and void of emotion, because to do anything other than that would be to _let the side down_. It would be the end of her he was sure of that, the switch that would finally turn out the bright light that was Ruth Evershed.

It was just so bloody unfair, but then when had it ever been anything but unfair for any of them, in this ghastly world that they'd chosen to move in?

Tom, Angela Wells and Davey King had all taken a pot shot at Harry at one time or another and heaven knows what might have happened to him if he'd been left in the hands of Connie's goons. How many more attempts to eliminate him could he survive, everyone eventually walked into a last chance saloon didn't they, even Harry?

For the moment though, he had a job to do, and that was to ensure that Ruth didn't do a runner and make a beeline for Thames House herself, which given her stubbornness and the current circumstances wasn't just likely, it was a racing bloody certainty, which reminded him. He'd seen Ruth's steely determination when he'd flown over to the States to bring her home and her ability to act and think out of her comfort zone when they'd gone to the prison to get Harry released, had been as good as any field agent. He needed to think of a way to get that determination back. Clutching at straws he might be, but the house was becoming oppressive, whereas the garden was peaceful and inviting and if he had to stay with Ruth for god knows how long, it felt like the best place to start.

'Does your laptop work outside, perhaps we could do some research on those buildings, it might be a help to Harry?' He suggested, waiting for her to turn round with a response that he hoped might be a little more positive.

When she eventually did, he could barely imagine how on earth hadn't he noticed it before, during all the years that he'd known her, during the countless hours that they'd sat together, beavering away in search of some intel or other. On that dreadful day when Harry had delivered the news that Colin had been murdered and he'd been close to collapse and Ruth had comforted him. It was her eyes, the depth of them was fathomless and now that she'd been crying they were so startlingly blue, they were breath taking. The eyes were the gateway to the soul weren't they and he'd always known that Ruth was filled with compassion. But with her it went so much deeper than that.

For the first time since he'd seen Harry and Ruth together as a couple, everything suddenly made sense, and he finally understood the complete package that had brought them to this point and why they now loved each other so deeply. It had never been opportunist on Harry's part or a crush on the boss as had been whispered about. That was why the _good old Harry_ comments had upset Ruth so much and had seen her run. Their love was something rare and wonderful and it was this that had drawn them together, but only they had known that they'd loved each other, _even then_. He wanted to believe that before he'd died, perhaps Adam had come to realise this as well. He had after all been the closest to Ruth and Harry at that time.

The last piece in the puzzle that had eluded him until now was what had helped them survive, and he'd found it. _Now_ he had the strength to do what Harry had asked of him, and keep Ruth safe until he came home.

* * *

On any other morning in what was already beginning to feel like another lifetime, Malcolm's throwaway remark about the section being overstretched and sleep deprived, would have seen Harry reaching for his coat without hesitation. But if there was one thing that the last four weeks had taught him, it was to re affirm how he'd always felt about Ruth and how much he loved her, and now that they'd finally found the courage to take their relationship to bounds that they'd previously only dreamed about, his priority as to what really mattered wasn't the service anymore, it was them. He'd tried to convey that to her in the way he'd kissed her goodbye and had looked at her, terrified that if tried to explain it in words that he'd get it wrong. 'I'll be back soon before you know it,' he could have got away with if he'd been talking to a child, but to Ruth who knew that it was absolute bollocks, but hadn't said so, it had been inadequate to the point of madness.

Balling up his fists inside his pockets and walking as casually as he could manage, was doing nothing to help calm his rising temper, as he crossed Portman Square and turned down another side alley, managing to avoid the onslaught of the mid - morning traffic, but not to blank out his memories of the previous evening. He'd truly believed that when he'd told Ruth that they'd 'talk about it in the morning' that they'd be able to do just that, and yet here they were again, with one or the other of them having to leave the other one standing. Four weeks, eleven hours and twenty three minutes by his calculation he'd been side lined, during which time he'd been leading the life of a happily married man, whereas for the best part of the last twenty years he'd forced himself to ignore to his personal cost, the chance of a wife and a family and instead had accepted the life that that had been metered out to him. If you were lucky enough to avoid a bullet or a bomb, and let's face it there weren't many that had, then the service would eventually destroy you anyway with the sheer weight of your over indulgent sense of responsibility, and with it, the inevitable overwhelming guilt and grief. Well not any more. If he came out of this unscathed and please god he would, _they'd have that future that he'd promised her_.

'It's my last mission Ruth, I promise you,' he kept telling himself, as he tried to blank out her terrified face and concentrate on the job in hand, as he hailed a taxi to cross London, and back to what had essentially been his home for the most part of twenty years.

Unshaven due to Malcolm's unexpected and early arrival and dressed in clothes so casual that no one other than Ruth would have recognised him, he paid the taxi driver and set off on foot, approaching Thames House by the same circuitous route that Jo and Ben had brought their colleagues the previous evening. A spectre at the feast who knew that his heartrate was increasing with every single step, returning for one last visit, to haunt anyone that was setting out to destroy what he had spent half his lifetime preserving. 'Come on Harry, you've still got the strength to do this,' he kept trying to convince himself.

* * *

How on earth they'd managed to keep it to a need to know basis that the head of counter terrorism had been missing for over four weeks, Ros wasn't quite sure, but even the DG had been led to believe that Harry was still sitting behind his desk and repelling the advancing hoards. Blake had known almost from the beginning, but then he hadn't been about to tell anyone had he? This though she hoped gave them an advantage, in that Harry would be able to come and go as he pleased, without any 'where the hell have you been Harry?' Comments, being hurled at him from every corner.

She also realised that his decision to leave Ruth unprotected all bar Malcolm wouldn't have been taken lightly, so she needed to keep this conversation business-like and steer herself away from her usual tendency to become over flippant. Nominally he was still her boss, but she'd heard and seen enough over the past few weeks to know that this was going to be Harry's swan song, so apart from her prime objective which was a successful conclusion to what had been a stressful few weeks, she wanted to avoid another guilt trip like the one that had seen Ruth exiled. If one or the other of them came out of this with anything more than a scratch then she'd never forgive herself and if it was Ruth that was hurt, then she dreaded what it would do to Harry. So she went with the obvious.

'It's good to see you Harry you're looking well,' she told him, marvelling at the obvious change, before she shook his hand and Alec arrived with the coffee.

It had been at least five years since Harry had seen Alec White being escorted out of Thames House, far the worse for wear, and he was pleasantly surprised to see how well he appeared to have adjusted to being back at five. If he and Ros had found a way to work together without tearing strips off each other, then maybe the future would be in safe hands and not the disaster that he'd been envisaging.

'Not exactly the meeting room is it, but I can understand your need for caution,' he answered Ros, impatiently waiting for them to bring him up to date, as they sat on either side of the table, where less than twenty four hours ago she and Alec had briefed their assets.

Their plan was at best is a sketchy one they told Harry. Jo was attempting to track Connie, although she appeared to be taking her on the same wild goose chase as she had Ben. Tessa they'd decided had probably researched and supplied the manpower and equipment that had enabled them to set the devices, and GCHQ had confirmed that the analyst to all intents and purposes had done her job and was long gone.

The device on Tower Bridge they presumed had been primed as a decoy to create short term chaos, when the emergency services would be deployed on mass to a point far enough away from the bigger prize. The fact that they'd disabled it and it wouldn't go off, might make Connie more cautious, but step back from the brink _never_ , it wasn't in her nature, assuming that they were able to let this thing play out to the end, and that very much depended on what he discovered today. They had approximately four hours before the race started and less than six before the first of the runners reached what they now knew was the intended target.

'Tariq's narrowed the list of buildings down to seven that stretch for a distance of about five hundred metres,' Alec told him. 'What we need you to do is to discover any locations where someone can fire off a shot and then escape undetected,' had been Harry's idea, but he kept his council. This wasn't the time to be petty.

'What about Blake, any news on him?' he asked instead, remembering Ruth's threat when he'd said that he wanted to tear bits off him.

'Like you he has the power to go anywhere Harry, so there is every possibility that you might bump into him, but that's a chance that we have to take and you're the boss after all, so it's your decision how you deal with him,' wasn't all together helpful, bearing in mind what Harry had in mind.

'Tariq will be on the monitor and I'll be the voice in your ear the whole time, and we've fixed you up with a wing man who will watch your back,' Ros told him, as Ben's friend John walked into the room, carrying one of Harry's smart suit's and a tie, and shook his hand warmly.

'Very new Sir,' John answered Harry question as to who he was, as Ros pointed out that both Connie and Blake would recognise any of the regular staff, whereas John would be able to blend in unnoticed.

Close to the forefront of Harry's mind, were phrases like god help me, and he hoped that blending in didn't refer to body parts on the wallpaper, which in most government buildings was generally red. But in deference to Ros's new status, he held his tongue.

'We've got the cavalry standing by, so promise me you won't do anything stupid,' were Ros's last words to Harry, before he and John walked back out into the afternoon sunshine, with a small handgun tucked safely inside Harry's jacket.

* * *

With strict instructions that he had to do exactly what Harry told him, John tagged along beside him, more than a little overawed by the fact that he was accompanying a knight of the realm into who knows what in some of the city's most important buildings. It didn't take long for John to realise that Harry wasn't one for chit chat, but he was nervous and needed to concentrate and the only way he could do that was to reflect.

His early relationship with Ben had been at university when they'd studied journalism together and had shared rooms, after which they'd gone their separate ways. When his father had been killed in Afghanistan, he'd been briefly tempted to join the army, but instead he'd come back to London in search of his friend and the rest as they say was history.

Unable to find work he'd learnt to survive on his own and one good thing about living on the streets was that you learnt how to read people, something that he hoped would be useful in the next few hours.

It had been less than two weeks since Ben had sought him out and over a couple of pints had told him that he had given up journalism and was working for the security services and had recruited him. After a week of shadowing Jo to make up the numbers, he hoped what it had taught him, would be sufficient to see him through the next few hours. It felt totally surreal, except that it wasn't, because Harry was the best according to Jo and you did as he said, otherwise your life wouldn't be worth living. Who Harry actually was and quite where he'd appeared from he had no idea, but given the chance to place a bet, he would have put everything he had on the fact that Harry had been in the military. His manner, the way he walked at a steady and even pace, he exuded power and that slowly gave John the confidence that he needed, which was just as well. They were less than ten minutes from their first objective, the Home Office.

* * *

Away from all the varying thoughts and emotions that were flooding the minds of the other members of section D, Connie alone had no such worries. With nothing to live for any more, deserted by her lord and masters who had promised her salvation, she'd set herself on a course to the promised land. It had been oh so easy to give Jo the slip, the consummate spy with years of practice, not as fit as she once was, but with enough guile to pull it off. And as for Harry, did he really believe that it was his idea and not realise that she'd set things up, so that he'd be tempted out of his hidey hole to come and find her? As for Nicholas poor devil, it had been a piece of cake. If there was one thing that Harry had been right about during all the years that she'd known him, was that you didn't have to look very far to find a corrupt politician.

It was really quite pleasant sitting here in her room overlooking the Thames, with the sun sparkling off the water. Her only regret was that she wouldn't be around tomorrow to see the chaos of her creation. Never mind neither would Harry, other than perhaps the odd piece of him.


	15. Chapter 15

'Thirty minutes, Alpha One, this is taking much too long,' Ros told Harry as he and John exited the Home Office, having eventually persuaded an under–secretary on the first floor to allow him access to all the rooms, because 'this idiot' as he'd referred to John, had left a file there yesterday morning and now couldn't remember where. John had received a sympathetic look from the secretary in question and told Harry that they needed to be quick, because his boss was due back from Westminster any time now and he'd have his guts for garters that no one had spotted it.

Once on their own, Harry told John to open and close all the doors on the south side of the building and apologise to any of the occupants by saying that he'd misplaced his boss, namely him, and that he'd see him downstairs in the foyer when he'd finished. Half an hour later with nothing to suggest that either Blake or Connie were in the building, Harry called Tariq to ensure that they were still on his radar, before turning his attention to their next port of call, the Houses of Parliament.

* * *

Heaving with camera wielding tourists, at the start of a weekend when the house was in recess, even Harry who in no way resembled one of the throng, didn't appear to have attracted much attention, as John followed him through the foyer and in the direction of the three the three south facing towers. Unlikely as it was that anyone would be bold enough to walk into the seat of government carrying a gun, apart from Harry that was, the view of the road below and the river beyond was set to be second to none. If a gunman did intend firing a shot into the clear night sky, over the heads of a crowd of runners, at a precise time, then one of these towers would be the optimum place to do it.

'Tell me about yourself,' Harry asked John, as they battled their way between the masses that were queueing to be given a tour of the corridors of power, 'Ros tells me that your father used to be in the army, how long ago was that?'

One mention of the army to Harry and his mind had immediately forgotton how much older he now was, and reverted to the days when he'd been that bright young man who had first set out to make a difference. Early morning drill parades, discipline and more than his fair share of bollockings, that had shaped him into the man that he'd become.

Up until then Harry had barely spoken to John, but this particular question had been thrown at him, firstly because he was genuinely interested in the young man, and secondly in an effort to help them both relax. Dressed in his suit which was beginning to irritate him, he'd been constantly fiddling with the knot in his tie. Not only because because it felt alien after so many weeks without one, but because his mind had veered off back to Ruth again and her recently confessed once bizarre fascination with his ties, or more precisely in removing them. He needed concentrate and put her out of his mind, there would be plenty of time for those particular images later.

'After you,' Harry encouraged him, who as a knight of the realm had been given access to the towers by one of the porters, on the grounds that John was his nephew who was back on a flying visit from a university in Paris, where he was studying the architecture of all the major European cities. As they climbed the latest tower to a height that had Harry breathing harder with every step that he took, John regaled him with stories about his father's exploits during his thirty or so years in the army, which had ended when he'd been killed in the Falklands.

'I'm sorry,' said Harry, when John suddenly went quiet after telling him that he'd been nine when his father had been shot in the head by a sniper, wondering if what they were doing now was bringing back painful memories. That made him about thirty three, which was the ideal age for him to be joining five, which was another of the reasons that Harry had asked the question.

The view from the top of the tower was breath taking, literally as far as Harry was concerned, as he lent against the railings and took a moment to cast his eye across the river, where it was immediately drawn to Thames House. It was way too far in the distance to pick out every external feature clearly, except for the sanctuary that was the rooftop terrace. As John found his voice again and continued with his story, Harry heard none of it, as his resolve to put Ruth out of his mind deserted him again. Memories of times when they'd stood there together on some pretext or other, in the days when he'd cherished every glorious moment, but with little hope of anything but his dreams to cling onto, that had filled his sleepless nights.

If it hadn't been for John's insistence that as they hadn't found anything that perhaps they needed to move, and Ros bellowing into his ear again about time wasting, he'd have stayed put. If he'd harboured any doubts that he was going to quit MI5, which he hadn't, they'd have been dispelled in those precious few moments when he could have sworn that he'd felt her hand on his arm again. It suddenly felt easier to talk to this young man that he barely knew, who unlike him had his whole life in front of him.

'Call me Harry, not Sir,' he told John for a second time, forgetting that he'd initially been irritated that he'd been caught daydreaming.

Easier said than done, John thought to himself. This Harry whoever he was, was intriguing him more and more as the minutes went past. He'd been so assured, to the point where the poor bugger at the Home Office whoever he was had been deferential in his presence, whereas now at the top of the tower when he'd been gazing across London, his manner had changed completely, to the point where he'd looked genuinely ordinary, almost wistful. When he got the opportunity to talk to Jo again, he'd ask her about Harry, she'd tell him, he felt sure about that.

* * *

Fitzwilliam House was now a residential block of flats that has once housed the Duke and Duchess of Westminster until they'd _repaired_ , to their house in the country. As far as Harry was concerned it was a four square sandstone built monstrosity, for those that had more money than sense. Gaining access under any circumstances was difficult, but if you knew the resident janitor because he'd been one of your assets for years, then it was a piece of cake.

'Harry, long time no see,' again had John pondering who the hell Harry was, as they were admitted without question and then invited to follow the owner of the large bunch of keys, across the glittering hallway and into the janitor's spacious office.

Had they not been pushed for time, John was certain that Harry would have accepted the cup of tea that they were being offered, instead of which he got straight down to business.

'Any recent visitors or maybe someone that you haven't seen before?' brought a negative, as they were escorted up the ornate staircase and shown into the two empty flats where the occupants were supposedly away on holiday.

'What I'm really looking for,' said Harry, changing the subject abruptly,' is a flat to rent for my dear old Dad. He used to live in London many moons ago before he moved back to Yorkshire and he's coming to visit us next month. There's no point him staying with me, I'll be out at work every day, besides which I can't afford to own anything with a view of the river. For Dad's couple of weeks it has to be close to here, it was my Mum's favourite view,' he continued, as a couple who were leaving the building popped their heads into the office and said that they were going out for the rest of the day.

John wondered who the other half of the 'us' that Harry was referring to was and if Harry actually had a father that was still alive, but if he did he was pretty sure that Mr. Pearce senior had no intension of decamping from Yorkshire to visit London, why would he? Besides which John was beginning to read Harry and tell the difference between fantasy and reality. He could understand why Jo had described Harry as the best. He was. It was amazing how he was able to spin the conversation at the drop of a hat and always manage to get the answer that he wanted.

As the front door closed behind the departing Mr and Mrs 'something double barrelled' that they'd all smiled at, their host picked up his phone. 'Have that cup of tea Harry,' he suggested, 'while I make a few calls.'

As John added tea making to his list of duties, Harry finally divested himself of his tie, adding it to the collection of useful gismos that Tariq has fixed him up with, should they run into Connie.

* * *

Ros had barely slept, totally focused on the day ahead, and John aside, the remainder of their recently acquired assets had been up since dawn, sent to mingle amongst the thousands of fun runners who had been assembling in Greenwich Park, handing in their registration forms before being given their numbers. It had already been a long day, but they'd followed her instructions to the limit and had sat for hours within spitting distance of the various registration points, ready to call her if they saw anything or anyone that looked suspicious. That done, for the second time in as many days, they were now heading to the various points along the route, where they were eventually going to join the race.

Ros wasn't taking any chances, and she Alec and Tariq had de camped to the meeting room which offered them complete privacy, although by now, their desertion of a virtually empty grid had been somewhat un-necessary. It was the do as I say, not as I do Ros, that had seen Tariq and Alec setting up screens, equipment and a mountain of cables, not to mention popping out to buy the customary pile of sandwiches and fruit that had accompanied the kettle.

Less than thirty metres behind Harry and John, who had been in Fitzwilliam House for close to their allotted thirty minutes, Jo and Ben, dressed and behaving like tourists, were shadowing them.

'Just in case,' Ros had told them, but they were to keep their distance unless she told them otherwise. Being a holiday weekend, the entire embankment was heaving with holiday makers and their children, to the point where there were queues everywhere, especially for the pleasure boats. Having spent the best part of a week either cycling or jogging along this part of the riverside, they'd both reached a point where they felt that they knew every inch of what they were now referring to as the trap, which went as far as recognising the walls and the paving stones that had been donned with their markings. Added to that, in the twenty four hours since they'd done their dummy run, the final preparations had been made and the route was now set up ready for the race. Barriers marked out the deviations to keep the already assembling spectators away from the runners, water and food stations were evident by the tables and their owners that flanked the river wall, and arrows on the ground indicated the route that the runners had to take. Spanning the route where Jo and Ben had now stopped, was the huge banner indicating that there were two kilometres to the finishing line. Their brief stop saw Ben pretending to tie an errant shoelace, while they waited to hear from the grid that Harry and John were about to reappear.

'Alpha one's on the move again,' came Ros's voice, as Harry and John emerged again and turned left in the direction of Blackfriars Bridge, before disappearing into a side street that wasn't on the agenda. Leaping to their feet, Jo and Ben ducked and dived their way between passing the traffic, causing one motorist to slam on his brakes and swear at them, as in an effort to catch up with Harry's disappearing back, they'd nearly been mown down. Reaching the pavement and carving their way through pedestrians, it couldn't have been more than a minute before they reached the entrance to the alleyway where Harry and John had turned.

'Speak to me Alpha two,' Ros's voice demanded.

At the head of the empty alleyway, Jo's vision had momentarily blurred and her voice deserted her, as panic far greater than anything she had ever experienced engulfed her.

'Ros we've lost them, she finally confessed, her head in her hands, her breathing heavy, as the implication as to what this might mean, compounded the panic that she was already feeling.

'Then find them for Christ's sake, come in Alpha one, Ros screamed,' as Tariq frantically pushed buttons and announced that Harry and John had disappeared off their monitors.

* * *

Completely unaware that they were on their own because all links to the grid had been severed, Harry ploughed on, explaining to John that they were heading to The Turrets, a small and very exclusive private school for mature students in side road that ran parallel to the embankment, where according to his source, rooms could be rented during the school holidays. 'This is the moment where you need to do exactly as I tell you, no heroics, do you understand me?' Harry had told the young man, who was after all an ordinary civilian.

* * *

'Providing that he can manage the stairs, it's an absolutely ideal spot for your dear old Dad,' his asset had told him, 'he'll be away from the main drag so it'll be nice and quiet, but he'll still have the perfect view of the river that he wants.'

* * *

Malcolm had done a sterling job and had so far managed to keep Ruth occupied. But as the day had worn on and with race time fast approaching and still with no word from Harry or the grid, his luck was about to run out. Ruth when determined and in this case scared as well, turned into an altogether different person, as she told him in no uncertain words 'that she was sorry, but she was buggered if she'd be side lined any longer, that she wasn't crazy, Harry was in trouble she could feel it,' as she reached for her coat, which given how warm it was seemed unnecessary and then grabbed her bag and said, 'well are you coming with me or not?'

With Harry's instructions not to let Ruth out of his sight reverberating in his ears, Malcolm raced after her down the path and climbed into the taxi, which according to Ruth's instructions, was taking them to the back entrance of Thames House and quickly.


	16. Chapter 16

Ruth almost ran rather than walked onto the empty grid until her steps stalled, as did her resolve. This being back here was what she'd once considered to be normal, but this was so far from normal. His office was empty, as were the desks that had been rearranged in such a way that they were so alien to her, that for a moment found herself wanting to turn and run. Had Harry been party to the change, she had no idea, but it was a stark reminder as to why she was here, so why in the life of her she'd imagine that he'd be sitting at his desk, she couldn't imagine. In the distance, a door opened and then closed. Muffled voices, footsteps echoing in the huge vacuum that was section D, brought back recollections of the last time that she'd stood there, as Mace and her colleagues lined up in front of her as her accusers, until Harry had stepped forward, in what had proved to be a futile attempt to save her. The whispers when he'd turned his back on them and stepped into the same pod as her before he'd driven her home. Their goodbye that was etched on her heart and would be until the day that she died. And now here she was again, the tables turned, and it was her who had to stand up and be counted. To shout at the invisible crowd that he was an innocent in all this and that she loved him.

'Ruth, God it's good to see you, we're in the meeting room,' said a familiar voice, as she turned to see a worried looking Ros walking towards her. So she was right, something had happened. Determining to keep herself in check, she followed Ros down the oh so familiar corridor, where Harry had once lent in, so close to her that she'd barely been able to breath such had been her feelings for him, on the day that he'd told her she was a born spook. Well she wasn't a spook any more, she was dead, and the only reason that she was here was to save Harry and be damned with the rest.

'Ruth, this is Tariq Masood,' Ros said, introducing the young man that Malcolm had told her endless tales about. Alec White, Harry had described to her in great detail, yet again he wasn't what she'd imagined. Tall like Adam he certainly wasn't, stocky like Harry maybe, but halfway through munching an apple as he shook her hand and with his mouth full said 'that he was sorry that they had to meet under these circumstances,' never. Harry was a gentleman. Her next thought was to wonder just how much had these two been told about her miraculous reincarnation and her relationship with Harry? But for once, the answer when it came was quick and she guessed meant _everything_.

'Ruth you know Harry better than any of us, where's he likely to have gone? Alec asked her, as a picture of Harry leaving Fitzwilliam House with someone else that she'd never met, but they told her was John, flashed up onto the screen.

Somewhere in the back of Ruth's mind was the fact that Harry had once had an asset there, but even with her ability to drag the most inconsequential things from nowhere, his name was eluding her. They were under pressure, they needed an answer and what she did know and presumed that no one else did, was where Harry stored his eyes only data. He'd told her on the day when Tom had gone rogue, when he'd asked her if he could trust her and sworn her to take it to the grave. She'd said yes without hesitation, she'd have said yes to anything that he'd asked of her, even then, as in a moment of almost stifled hysteria, she realised that as she was supposed to be dead anyway, in a bizarre sort of way, she could answer Alec's question.

'I need to go into Harry's office - on my own,' brought a raised eyebrow, but with it a nod of agreement from Ros.

* * *

It had been more than two years since she walked into, never mind sat in Harry's office, but yet it felt as safe to her now as it had done then. The only difference being, well apart from the fact that he wasn't there, was that the smell of him, the nearness of him that had stayed with her and sustained her throughout their time apart, were gone. Double checking that no one had followed her she closed the blinds, before as gently as she could, she slipped her hand under his desk and released the tiny clip that would reveal what she was looking for. Placing the file on top of the desk, she opened it, surprised that since she'd last seen it, that a photograph of her had been added to the bundle. Dog eared as if it had been fingered more times than not, she turned it over and moved on. Sentiment could come later, for now she needed to find the USB that she knew was amongst the paperwork.

The heading 'assets' produced what they needed and Jo and Ben were dispatched to Fitzwilliam House. Scrolling further down, she found what else she was looking for, his personal observations and comments on his key staff, the most important of which at this moment was Connie. Reams of notes about their time together during the troubles in Ireland she already knew about, but at some time during the last two years, he'd added extra documentation about their time in Berlin. Why then? Had he been sitting in this same chair thinking that he'd lost her and because of it had confronted his mortality, or had he always known that this moment would come and that Connie would want her revenge? Either way she needed to read it, to find answers as to why he was so hell bent on getting himself killed. Once she knew that, then maybe they'd have a pathway to prevent it.

Call it instinct, call it curiosity or a desperate need to stay just where she was, but she ploughed on. Further down in the batch, she felt her heart miss a beat and her eyes widen. There in front of her, hidden in amongst the other insignificant jottings that Harry had written, was another file with her name on it 'In the event of my death.' Taking a deep breath in an effort to sustain herself, she opened the cover and started to read, total disbelief sweeping her further into the depths of Harry's mind. Apologies and regrets that amounted to confessions, had anyone other than her read them, ran into endless pages. How could he honestly believe that he alone should take the responsibility for all the hurt and the deaths that had happened over god knows how many years, as messages to his children and his ex-wife and more recently to her and to Wes swam before her eyes. This final working of his mind that he'd kept hidden from her and she'd found it why he was still alive, was ridiculous in its probability. It was inconceivable that he thought that he alone was to blame, when Tom, Adam, Ros, and the hundreds of now faceless spies that had preceded them were all culpable, as was she. If she hadn't felt so unspeakably sad she'd have screamed, but gathering herself together, she tucked the USB in her pocket and shut down his computer. This was a conversation to be had on another day when they were far away from here. Her priority for now, was to help them to find him.

* * *

The Turrets when they reached it was an imposing building surrounded by an impressively tidy garden, all contained within a wrought iron railed fence, far too high to climb. The gates were heavily padlocked and within full view of the curtained windows, so Harry beckoned to John to follow him down what once would have been a well used footpath. Overgrown to the point where it needed a hefty boot to open it, or boots which in this case belonged to John, they found themselves looking at a far less imposing side entrance. Across the lawn and directly in front of them was a small door, above which was a window, which Harry surmised gave light to a staircase. Harry's finger across his lips and the look in his eyes, reminded John of his father, when they'd played hide and seek in the garden with his mother and he'd been allowed to pretend that he was a real soldier going in search of the enemy. His time for reflection was cut short, as Harry divested himself of his jacket and produced the gun that John hadn't known he'd been carrying, before he took off across the lawn, beckoning for John to follow him. Now with their backs pressed hard against the wall and with John's heart hammering in his chest, Harry was on the move again, edging his way to a side door that only Harry could conceive would lead them to a successful conclusion or oblivion. John added picking locks, to the talents that this extraordinary man possessed, as he squeezed himself through the small space and ducked down behind him.

'You do as I tell you no matter what happens, and remember no heroics,' Harry reminded him, his last words of instruction before putting his foot on the first and then second step.

* * *

She knew they were coming, or more precisely she knew that he'd come. The carrot that she'd been dangling was far too great for him to have sent someone else. They had history her and Harry and this reckoning that she'd been planning for years was inevitable, it always had been.

'Stop loitering, I know you're out there and put the bloody gun down,' brought Harry and John to a door on the top floor and with it two decisions. Harry's was to do as Connie was asking and walk into the room, and then to try and talk her down in the hope of help arriving, but with the potential of meeting his maker, whilst John had the foresight to switch his phone back on, in the vain hope that there might be a signal that would link them to the grid.

'This,' said Harry, gesturing to the room 'is all about Hugo, isn't it Connie?' saw a shift in her body language that Harry recognised as terribly dangerous, particularly as she was playing with a gun that was dancing unnerving between first her left and then right hand, with the potential of ending up a pointing straight at him. 'He was ill Connie, long before we got there, he knew he was going to die, that's why he pleaded with me to let him do it,' brought no change in what she'd believed to be a lie or in the way that she was looking at him.

Back on the grid, Ruth slid the file that she'd found across the table to Ros, which showed her the true picture as to how misguided Connie was in what she'd believed for over fifteen years. Hugo and Harry had been sent to Berlin on a joint mission with the Russians, to dismantle an experiment by a splinter group that were developing a nuclear agent to sell to the highest bidder. Hugo had already been diagnosed with cancer and was dying, but it wasn't until Harry had suggested that they toss a coin as to who should go in, that he'd told him.

'Bollocks,' resonated around the grid, as Connie's voice went up an octave.

'Listen to me Connie, we can find a way to sort this out,' saw Connie's eyes glaze over and a pronouncement that told all of them who were listening that she wasn't looking for a way out, that this was the end.

'I loved Hugo with everything I had Harry and _you_ let him die,' she spat at him. 'Have you ever loved anyone so much, that you'd do anything to protect them, no of course you haven't you arrogant - - -'

'Bastard?' Harry suggested.

There was a pause during which time, only those on the grid had any idea as to what if anything Harry might be about to say, daring themselves to look at Ruth who had her head down and her eyes closed, holding tight to the table.

'I have and _I do_ ,' Harry answered her, praying it would buy him some time, or if not, that hopefully John would have the opportunity to tell Ruth that these had been his last words, as the meeting room suddenly felt decidedly short of air and Malcolm's hand searched for Ruth.

'Well whoever she is, she's about to be disappointed, goodbye Harry,' was the last thing they heard as Connie raised her gun.

* * *

Whilst Harry had been trying to delay the inevitable, his young companion had been scanning the room for an alternative option to a bullet through the head. He may have spent the last two years on the street, but if nothing else, it had taught him what neither his school or university had, and that was how to survive. He was damned if this lunatic, whoever she was, was going to destroy what he was now considering to be his future. He'd seen guns and knives aplenty, changing hands for money or more often for whatever it was that their owners could supply. But wherever this particular gun had come from it didn't matter, what did matter was that it was up close and personal, and it's owner had a deep seated desire to kill Harry and quite probably him.

He'd been so busy concentrating on his next move that he'd only been half listening, until Harry's heartfelt statement, that yes, he did have someone in his life. So there was an 'us' he loved her he said, he hadn't been making it up, and this changed everything _._ It evoked a memory so strong, one that he hadn't felt since the evening that he'd walked into the sitting room at home and found his mother crying, on the night when she'd received the visitors that had told her that his father had been killed. He'd been a young boy, buried in confusion and unable to comprehend the enormity of what his mother had been feeling, something that still haunted him. But this was now and whoever this woman was she was out there somewhere, and this time he could make a difference.

Completely ignoring Harry's instructions, as Connie raised her gun, Harry took the full force of John's weight as he launched himself through the air and hurled him to the ground. Lying in a pool of blood, the majority of which wasn't his but John's, Harry was dead to the world, having hit his head on the sharp corner of an iron bedstead, totally unaware of the chaos that was about to erupt around him.

* * *

Jo and Ben who'd been battling their way through the crowds, were no more than twenty metres away when they heard the first shot. The roads were packed with thousands of spectators, they'd been closed for hours. It was the people's race and to cancel it for the sake of one life, of a man that only a few of them knew existed, as devastated as they all felt in that moment and none more so than Ruth who had collapsed against Malcolm, had never been an option. As Ros cleared the meeting room with the nod of her head and the somewhat ridiculous statement that 'they weren't to worry, she was going to sort this out,' she left Malcolm to deal with Ruth.

'We need paramedics, John's been shot, but it's Harry that I'm really worried about, he's unconscious with a huge gouge in his head and he isn't moving,' was Jo's message, followed by the confirmation that Connie had shot herself. That at least had been music to Ros's ears, until she realised that any chance of paramedics getting through to her colleagues was virtually nil.

Pause, think, act, had always been Harry's mantra and that was what she needed to do now. 'Come on Ros, you're the section head, think woman,' she told herself. First things first, they needed to get Harry and John to a hospital and the only chance of doing that was by helicopter. The sky was full of them monitoring the race, surely there had to be one that had a doctor and have the means to get Harry and John out of there. Shouting at Tariq to keep in touch with Jo and Ben, she ordered Alec to get in contact with the met commander and to organise a ground to air evacuation.

That done she needed to front up, and that meant the unenviable job of walking back into the meeting room and telling Ruth the truth, well most of it. That for the moment at least, Harry was still alive.

'And what aren't you telling me?' The more than 'capable of reading between the lines Ruth' snapped back at her, giving her no option other than to tell her what Jo had just said.

'There's a problem with his breathing,' she told her.


	17. Chapter 17

Having followed the coordinates with Tariq screaming down the phone that they needed to hurry, Ben had been the first to arrive, only to depart again more quickly to be reacquainted with his lunch. Whereas Jo, considering her young age and lack of experience, had more than proved Ros's decision to make her section chief a good one, by somehow managing to ignore what was left of Connie and turn her attention to Harry and John.

'Sorry Jo, but it will be fifteen minutes at least before there's any chance of a doctor reaching you, just do what you can,' was the message that had filtered through from Alec, as she'd scrambled her thoughts into some sort of order and switched onto autopilot. John was awake and John was still breathing, clutching his arm where he'd been shot but still managing a weak smile, whereas Harry who was slumped in an uncompromising heap had his eyes closed and looked truly dreadful. First things first, do what you're training's taught you, check his pulse, please God he's not dead, just go through the routine, she told herself, clambering over the now collapsed bed.

'Come on Harry, Ruth's going to kill me if anything happens to you,' she told him, tearing off her jacket and rolling it into a ball, before hauling him onto his side and then as gently as she could, placed it under his head, shouting at Ben to get himself back in there.

* * *

Landing a helicopter on a small patch of grass in the heart of central London came with a multiple of problems. But when you'd been told that the two casualties, both of whom were vital to the nation's security had the potential of serious injuries, but not only that, that once they'd been stabilised they needed to be spirited away without being identified, your job as a pilot became ten times more difficult. A small cordon of police had been sent to surround the entrances to the makeshift landing site, so the few onlookers that had deserted the race and headed in the direction of the thundering blades, had seen nothing of the doctor and his young trainee that had raced towards the house. When they'd left their respective homes earlier that afternoon, it was to act as a first responders should any of the runners or spectators require medical assistance, but not until they arrived at what amounted to blood bath, did they realise why they'd been told that at the end of the evening, they'd have to be debriefed at the headquarters of MI5.

'Security Services, thank god your here,' Jo told them, flashing her id card briefly, before indicating that Harry whose head she was cushioning was the priority. That Connie was dead there was absolutely no doubt, so quickly giving instructions to his younger colleague as to which drugs to administer and best stem the blood flow that was seeping from a still conscious John's shoulder, the doctor turned his attention back to the once Head of Counter Terrorism and his colleague.

'Does he have any historical health conditions that you know about?' he asked her, feeling fairly sure that someone of Harry's status must had received his fair share of injuries throughout his illustrious career.

'Stress if that counts, his job's dreadfully stressful,' she answered him, her voice beginning to lose it's assurance, when he told her that given Harry's age and more importantly the incarceration that he'd been recently been subjected to at the hands of the previous occupant of the room, his head injury took on extra significance.

'It's essential that we keep him calm, talk to him,' the doctor told her, preparing a sedative, as Harry briefly opened his eyes muttering incoherently and thrashing about, until with the two of them restraining him, he finally went quiet. It was at this moment that his breathing became shallow and their main cause for concern and the need to get him to a hospital more urgent.

'Special is he?' the doctor asked Jo, who was cradling Harry in her arms and absentmindedly stoking his face, trying to ease the increasing tension that was enveloping not only her, but the room.

'Very, in more ways than you can possibly imagine,' she told him, as Harry lay unresponsive and deathly quiet.

* * *

As the nation woke up to a brief statement from Downing Street, that the combination of pressure of work and a recent marital breakdown, had resulted in the Home Secretary Nicholas Blake tragically taking his own life at his private residence in Surrey, and that the Police Helicopter that had landed on the playing field of a school close to the finishing line of the marathon, had done so to take a heavily pregnant mother who'd gone into labour to hospital, where she and her twin girls were now doing well, Harry and Ruth were sleeping. Harry because he was still heavily sedated and Ruth because she was simply exhausted.

A sleep deprived Ros found herself being summoned to the Home Office, for what had been described as an urgent meeting with the new Home Secretary Andrew Lawrence, who had stepped in overnight.

'I'm delighted to meet you Miss. Myers,' he told her, striding across his new office and warmly shaking her hand, before offering her a seat and a welcome cup of coffee. He was about her age, far too young in Ros's opinion to have been elevated from the back benches to a position of such high office, until he told her that the Prime Minister and some of his colleagues had been keeping an eye on Blake for some time, and he'd been primed to be the new broom, for when they eventually found a legitimate reason to sack him. His apparent suicide had come as a great shock, but with little regret, even Ros thought sounded callous, as she tried to calculate what if anything this new Home Secretary wasn't telling her. Still if Harry did intend throwing in the towel and she was offered his job on a permanent basis, then she thought it best to keep it simple and let Andrew Lawrence think that for now at least, she was a pushover. That's how Harry had played it for years, until the gloves came out of his pocket.

Gloves, on my God, she thought, as for one fleeting moment a vision crossed her mind, but surely the timeframe couldn't have made it possible for Harry to have made a sideways visit to Surrey before he'd turned up on the grid, or could it? He'd certainly done it before, when he'd taken her with him and shot Katchimov after Adam had been killed.

'Miss Myers?'

'Sorry Home Secretary, I was just thinking about Harry,' she told him, dragging her mind back from what amounted to a murder.

'Understandably how's he doing by the way, does he have someone at home to look after him?' was said in a tone that indicated that he wasn't just asking the obvious, but was genuinely concerned, far more so than Blake had ever been, which at least was a positive start and hopefully indicated that unlike most politicians, this one had some semblance of humanity.

'Stable as far as I know, my section chief's with him and I'm getting regular updates,' she told him.

Well I hope he's in safe hands and makes a full recovery,' didn't mean that he knew about Ruth, although apart from Harry, just as Jo was, that's who was uppermost in Ros's mind.

* * *

Away from the Home Office an equally tired Alec was still holding the fort on the grid, while Ben, Malcolm and Tariq had been sent home with orders that they weren't to come back in until mid - morning.

Jo who had travelled in the helicopter with Harry and John, despite being tired had spent the night at the hospital, hell bent on staying there until Ros told her otherwise.

In the bed on the opposite side of the room to Harry, John who had undergone an operation to remove the bullet which had been lodged in his shoulder was recovering sufficiently to be awake and resume his smile at Jo.

'Shouldn't someone be holding my hand?' he asked her with a twinkle in his eye, nodding across towards Harry, whose hand had been held by Ruth, from the moment that she'd been allowed in to see him.

'That's her isn't it, the one that Harry was talking about?' John persisted, having decided that to assume nothing in this crazy new world that he'd been plummeted into was the best way to get answers to his questions.

'You'd do well not to speculate,' Jo told him, dragging herself back into her section chief roll, which coincided with Malcolm walking into the room brandishing a cup of coffee, with strict orders from Ros that after she'd drunk it, that Jo was to go home.

'How long's Ruth been here?' He asked her out of John's earshot.

'All night,' didn't surprise him, she'd raced off the grid as though the hounds of hell were after her. 'She's only just fallen asleep, you should have heard her when she first arrived, she's got more guile than anyone gives her credit for and when it comes to Harry, God help anyone who tries to cross her.' Malcolm didn't doubt.

'What's happening?' he asked her, as Harry moaned.

'He's not in pain, well apart from an obvious headache, so they've assumed he's dreaming again, Christ knows what about, but until his breathing settles down they're keeping him sedated,' she told him.

Had Ruth been awake, she'd have been able to tell them exactly where Harry's mind had headed. Another senseless death that had piled another layer of guilt ,on a mountain that was already too high to climb.

'Why would they do that, isn't it better to let him wake up?' Malcolm asked her.

'Apparently not, it's got something to do with the combination of a physical and psychological trauma being more dangerous,' she said, making him promise to call her if there was any change, before gabbing her now pretty much wrecked jacket and heading out through the door.

'That's her, the one he's in love with,' John tried again, this time with Malcolm, but got the same response. If what Ros had told him, then this young man was going to get a salutation for bravery followed by a job offer with five, but until when or if Harry and Ruth went public about their relationship, that was all he was getting.

* * *

Harry was striding across a huge expanse of beach and far into the distance, Ruth was waving to him. Which would have been perfect, except that it wasn't a wave to say hello, it was a wave of warning. Far closer to Ruth than he was, Connie was marching towards her brandishing a gun and with every step that he took the distance between him and Ruth was increasing, whereas Connie was getting nearer. 'Think, decide, act you idiot,' he was telling himself trying to run, as the blood thundered in his ears and with every step that he took his legs were getting heavier. He was going to lose her, this time there would be no redemption. 'I love you Ruth,' he called out to her, but it was disappearing on the wind.

* * *

Forty eight hours later.

A relieved John had been discharged, with the proviso that he stay at home and rest for the minimum of a week and make sure that he took the antibiotics he'd been prescribed. Until now, home had amounted to the underpinnings of Westminster Bridge, whereas home in this case had been decided upon as Ben's, where both Ros and Jo had been to visit him. Ros to tell him that he needed to make an appointment to come and see her whenever he felt better and Jo after much pestering, had finally been persuaded to hold his hand.

Alone in his room apart from his nurse and a doctor, because even the ever present Ruth had been dragged to the canteen by Malcolm to get some breakfast, the fog that had been camped in Harry's mind was slowly starting to clear, although he had one hell of a headache. He knew that he hadn't been drinking and he also knew that he wasn't lying in his own bed. The room felt airless and smelt somehow different, whereas he and Ruth always slept with the window slightly open so that they could wake up to the dawn chorus that invaded the garden. Not only that he could hear voices and a man that he didn't recognise was saying 'this looks promising, do we know where she's gone?'

'The canteen I think, shall I send someone to fetch her?' and Harry realised that he felt hungry. Toast would be nice, he wondered if Ruth had gone to make him some toast?

'Are you Miss Evershed?' and Ruth's breakfast was abandoned.

'The doctor thinks he's starting to wake up,' was said to her departing back, as she raced down the corridor with Malcolm trying to keep up with her.

She planned on telling him that this had to be the last time and if he put her through anything like this again that she'd kill him herself, that was until she pushed open the door and walked into the room. The back of his bed had been raised slightly, and he was just, well he was just Harry. Not the Section Head who had sent her to hell and back over the past few days, but her Harry who was smiling at her, as with the sheer relief at seeing him awake and calm the tears coursed down her cheeks.

'Ruth,' was all it took for her to walk across the room and with a nod from the departing doctor, sit on the side of his bed.

'Forgiven?' he whispered as she leant in. Of course he was. He was back, he was hers she knew that, and in that moment there was no one else but them.

'I'll um,' God she'd forgotten poor Malcolm.

'Thanks again, for everything, you're a sweetheart,' she told him, realising that this outpouring of affection was embarrassing him, when he nodded towards the door and indicated that he'd make himself scarce.

'My pleasure, see you both soon I hope, can I tell the others?' he asked her, giving her a huge cuddle.

Ruth nodded, ' Only that Harry's awake though, then give us a few days to get back to normal, then pop in to see us,' she told him.

Rest and plenty of it, the doctor prescribed Harry, and if his headache sorted itself out then they could start talking about him going home, but not for at least three more days.

* * *

Ruth had kept her counsel. She'd also maintained her resolve to have _that_ conversation, to put to bed once and for all, the demons that still haunted Harry. If they were going to spend the rest of their lives together then it had to be done, either by her or with the threat of a visit to five's headshrinker, and getting Harry to do that would be like asking a pig to sprout wings. So it was two weeks later when having done as he'd been told by spending the entire time relaxing, either watching cricket on the television, listening to music or sitting in the garden, when Harry decided to have his version of _that_ conversation, which in his case consisted of 'where do you want to live and will you marry me darling,' that Ruth got in first. She'd thought long and hard about what she intended saying to him and concluded that short and to the point was the only answer.

'I want there to be an 'us' Harry, just as much as you do. But,' she added, stalling the words on his lips and the smile on his face as she produced the USB, rather than the bacon sandwich that he'd said he'd fancied.

So she'd found it, something that he'd written on that particularly dark morning, one year to the day when she'd sailed away from him. He couldn't actually remember the full extent of what written, so suggested that 'as he'd done as she'd asked of him and hadn't actually got himself shot, if it he might be let him off the hook?' No such luck unfortunately, as Ruth looked at him as though he was insane, took a deep breath and ploughed on.

'I'm not suggesting that you forget them Harry because that would be impossible, just accept that like we did, they all joined the service knowing full well that the likelihood of them walking away unscathed would be a matter of luck. But this ridiculous guilt that you're carrying needs to be put to bed Harry, we have to move on from this or I'll, I'll - -' she'd what, she'd lost her train of thought.

He was smiling at her in the infuriating way that always lead them to him getting what he wanted, but in this it case prompted her to grit her teeth and try not to let him get away with it.

'I'll,' she tried again.

'Go and make me that bacon sandwich?' He suggested.


	18. Chapter 18

It wasn't as if she wanted to refuse him, she was missing their newly found intimacy just as much as he was, but the doctor had been adamant that until he told them otherwise, that sex was off the menu. And on that morning, for the first time in years, Ruth had revisited the days when she'd wound her scarf nervously in her fingers and kept her head down throughout the entire conversation.

'Ignore it,' Harry groaned, when the phone rang and she made a move that would have taken her out of his arms, where he'd been idling the last few minutes away by running his fingers through her hair. Life was finally on the right track and the day that stretched ahead of them had been planned to be one without interruptions and the promise of decisions made. It stopped ringing only to start again a few moments later when Harry found himself listening to the Home Secretary.

'Sorry,' he mouthed at Ruth who rolled her eyes and unwillingly dragged herself out of his arms and bed to go and put the kettle on, as Harry prepared to face what they both hoped would be his first and last day back at the office.

'Bearing in mind the delicacy of what we're going to discuss, it's probably wiser if Miss Myers and I avoid the Home Office and you Thames House Home Secretary,' Ruth heard him say, as he struggled to straighten his tie until she mouthed 'let me do it,' with Lawrence having asked him how he was progressing and suggesting that perhaps they should meet. With that agreed, it was half an hour later, having promised Ruth that he'd take her out to dinner that evening, that he and Ros were heading for the less tempting promise of breakfast, courtesy of the Home Office's budget at a small hotel in Kensington.

For The Home Secretary to have admitted that his predecessor had been party to a plot, that had it succeeded would have constituted treason, brought the government to its knees and seen the country plummeting into chaos, and Five that one of their longest serving officers had gone rogue with a vendetta that she'd been planning for years, successfully running rings around her colleagues for decades before she'd eventually shot herself, was in nobody's interest, most of all theirs. Walls tended to have ears and skeletons invariably came out of cupboards years later, had seen them shaking hands and agreeing that there should be no documented evidence whatsoever about the recent events. What was done was done, another secret to be quietly buried, known only to those who'd born witness.

'We're all agreed then, sleeping dogs are best left sleeping,' Lawrence said, shaking Harry's hand before ringing the bell and ordering them more coffee.

* * *

In answer to Andrew Lawrence's first question, Harry continued to progress very nicely thank you as his headaches continued to diminish. A follow up visit to see the consultant had given him the all clear, bar what was causing Harry's frustration for another week, a visit to say thank you to the doctor who had treated him at the scene and a huge amount of TLC and doing as Ruth had been telling him had seen to that. One thing though still lay quietly dormant beneath the surface, the _where do we go from here question,_ and it had reached the stage where Harry was desperate to get that resolved.

During a long chat over a shared bottle of wine with Ros, on an evening when Ruth had gone over to see Jo, the subject of his resignation and his deep seated desire that the service should be left in her capable hands had been aired. He trusted Ros almost more than he trusted himself he'd told her and he knew that it was time to go. Life was tenuous to say the least and who knows how many years he had left, was something that Ros had rubbished, more in an effort to control her overriding emotion that she would miss him, rather than her believing that this was true. Section D without Harry at the helm still terrified her, but she'd accepted his reasons and the confidence he had in her without recourse.

'No extravagant goodbyes that would embarrass Ruth,' he'd made her promise, 'just a small and inconsequential cheerio at Thames House over a cup of tea with their colleagues or a drink at the George, was what he wanted,' she'd agreed to, then unlike his other requests, had dismissed the moment that she'd walked out of the door.

'Bollocks to that,' she said to Malcolm when he asked her what Harry wanted in the way of a send-off, 'you know them better than I do Malcolm, arrange something.'

Malcolm didn't do arranging other than the roster as to who would call in to ensure that his dear old Mum had eaten her dinner on days when he'd had to work late, so it was another two weeks, by which time Harry had handed in his resignation, to the delight of the DG that he was finally going to be free of Harry bloody Pearce, the sincere regret of the new Home Secretary but with the added bonus that he was going to see Ros Myers on a regular basis, that the evening that he and Jo had put together came to fruition.

'Jo and I would like to take you both out to dinner tomorrow, we can't let you slip away without a proper goodbye,' Malcolm told them, when he called round unannounced on his way home, adding that they'd booked a table at The Palace View Hotel, which was by no means as grand as its name suggested.

* * *

That or part of _that_ long awaited conversation had been decided and in a couple of days time, he and Ruth were heading to the Yorkshire coast to see Harry's father, who was more than eager to meet Ruth, he was ecstatic. Years his son had been on his own and in his opinion which was closer to the truth than Harry would have ever admitted, was losing his touch with reality. Living at work rather than at home, only occasionally answering his phone calls and telling him that he was fine, when he knew he wasn't. Everyone knew when their child, whatever age they were was lying to them, and Harry's father might be loitering in his late seventies but he wasn't a fool. It was the way that Harry had said her name when he'd called to say that they wanted to come and see him, it was wonderful. 'Don't go to any trouble Dad, we'll sort it out when we get there,' everything was we or us, in a conversation that had lasted longer than any they'd had in years. If he'd been able to, he'd have jumped for joy he felt so happy.

He'd known for years what Harry did for a living. Catherine his own private little spy had told him when she and Graham had been small and had arrived like a parcel to spend their summer school holiday with him, during the time when he and their mother were settling their divorce. She was a wonderful granddaughter, still visiting him and always sending him a postcard from where ever she was, but was she aware of this new development in her father's life, probably not? Maybe it was his turn to have a quiet little word?

* * *

'Sorry Ruth, but I just need to pop into Thames House one more time,' Harry told her, as they drove across London on their way to the restaurant. He'd been in a couple of days earlier and said his goodbyes and as far as Ruth was concerned the last time was just that. Wearing the new pale blue print dress that he'd insisted on buying her, going out to dinner, something that they'd only managed to do twice in the entire time that she'd known him and by her calculation they were already running late, which was entirely his fault. Free from the shackles that had prevented him doing anything strenuous for weeks, her coming out of the shower _smelling like a spring morning_ had been his exact words, had seen them climaxing until she'd barely remembered what her name was, never mind having the strength to get ready to go out. That Harry was fit and well again and that his moans were of pleasure not pain were in no doubt, as he'd tempted her back into the shower again and with the water cascading over them had brought her shuddering to the point of wondering why on earth they were going to waste the rest of the evening in a restaurant. Now though when they were actually on their way she was looking forward to it and he wanted to put a damper on the evening by going into work, _why?_

Dressed as they were, going onto the grid meant that they'd stick out like a couple of saw thumbs, but Harry grabbed her hand and avoiding the lift, Ruth quickly realised where he was taking her.

'I need one last look at the view,' sounded quite reasonable, as he wrapped his arm firmly around her shoulders, in fact it appealed to her as well and surely Malcolm and Jo wouldn't mind if they were a few minutes late?

Nothing had changed and she'd been so distracted by the realisation that it had been more over three years since she and Harry had last stood there, that him easing her round until she was facing him, took her completely by surprise. Gone was the hesitancy and the talk of bread sticks, this was totally different, he was the Harry that had told her on endless occasions that he loved her and made love to her with a gentleness that only she could comprehend. Passion and a determination to make her happy he had in bucket loads and it was this Harry that was looking at her now, with his mind firmly made up.

It had to be here, he'd dreamed about it for years as without preamble he took a deep breath and asked her to marry him.

It wasn't that Ruth flinging her arms around his neck and kissing him wasn't enjoyable because it was, but he'd been hoping for a yes that he could actually hear. Ruth spluttering 'happy tears and she was worried about what was happening to her makeup,' wasn't the reaction that he'd been expecting, as he reached for his hankie and gently wiped her eyes. But he'd done it. He'd finally asked her in the place that meant more to them than anywhere else on earth.

* * *

Standing enjoying a drink at the bar, in the small hotel where Malcolm and Jo had booked a table, Ros, Alec, Tariq sporting a camera and John, were contemplating the evening ahead. In the foyer, Malcolm and Jo were waiting, the former praying that Harry would accept their gesture for what it was, and not blow a gasket. No fuss he'd said and no fuss was what they'd planned, just a quiet meal and the chance to say thank you and good luck for the future, from their colleagues and friends who cared about them, and in his case loved them.

That Ruth looked, well stunning was Jo's first impression, as she walked through the door, wearing a dress that was so unlike anything that she'd ever seen her wearing, with Harry's arm firmly around her waist. But it went deeper than that, there'd been a shift in their relationship, she could sense it. Not only that, she was surprised that despite Harry's insistence that they didn't want any fuss, as the evening wore on they were both taking this much more formal gathering in their stride, plus at various points during dinner, Ruth appeared to have lost the ability to disguise the way that she felt about Harry. Had the others noticed were they even interested? Quite probably they were all spies for heaven's sake. In their days on the grid, Ruth had always been the tactile one, whereas Harry had been the cause of many a wager as to how many hours a day he spent gazing at Ruth, compared to his files. Not now so it seemed, as Harry's hand sought out Ruth's across the table and he could barely take his eyes off her, she was getting his almost undivided attention, and wow she'd only just noticed it, Ruth was still wearing the ring, surely they hadn't had they?

Not easily put off, she waited until the meal was over and they'd transferred to a small private lounge to enjoy their coffee and relax. So when Harry had briefly deserted Ruth to go and chat to John, she swooped.

'I love your dress, that colour really suits you,' she said as a throwaway remark that she hoped might elicit a clue, carefully guiding Ruth away from Tariq and Malcolm who were heading towards them. A look that she hoped said 'girl talk' seemed to do the trick, as she nudged Ruth to a quiet corner and persuaded her to have another drink and tell her about their fast approaching visit to Yorkshire.

Ruth might have had too much to drink and be walking on air at the prospect of being married to Harry, but she recognised digging when it happened, and Jo was currently wielding what Ruth determined to be a wasted spade.

'Harry hasn't seen his father for years and as I've never been to Yorkshire it seemed a good idea that we go there for a short break. After that who knows, but I'll find a way to keep in touch, I promise,' and Jo was far from being satisfied.'

'Seriously, you're expecting me to believe that's it, come on Ruth you're glowing.'

They'd discussed telling everyone and had decided that they'd wait, but this was Jo, the only person apart from Harry that she'd ever confided in and she was leaving her hanging, it wasn't fair.

When they did get married wherever that was, she and Malcolm would be invited, in fact they'd be essential. Who else did they know who could be witnesses other than two poor unsuspecting souls who wouldn't even know them?

'Let's get a breath of fresh air,' Ruth suggested.

* * *

The following morning.

'I fancy taking the scenic route,' Harry told her as he ignored the M1 Motorway sign that indicated The North and turned onto a quieter road that would take them across country, and if he had his way would involve an overnight stopover.

'Delaying tactics?' she asked him, having spent most of the previous evening when they'd been packing, talking about his father and how he was another of his relatives that he'd pretty much abandoned, or at least thought he had.

'Maybe, but it's only a day Ruth and I'd rather be spending it with you,' said everything, as they pulled off the road and unloaded the picnic that Ruth had prepared and found a quiet spot to sit beside a river.

'I told Jo,' she confessed wanting to tell him sooner rather than later.

'Good because I told Malcolm, ridiculous aren't we?' And Ruth started to laugh.

Lunch over, Harry's grand plan that they'd delay their arrival in the heart of the North Yorkshire Moors by another day, was jilted somewhat by the lack of traffic and by mid - afternoon he'd run out of excuses as to why they shouldn't arrive at his father's house well before dinner time. Ruth who had been quite calm until they'd stopped at a roadside tearooms close to Rosedale Abbey, where Harry had suggested that maybe she would like a tour of the ruins to delay the inevitable whatever the hell that meant, had worked herself up into a frenzy. If what Harry was saying was to be believed, she was beginning to wonder why on earth she'd agreed to this trip in the first place.

She'd tried, 'I'm sure he's lovely,' to be told, 'He's unpredictable, you never know what he's going to do next, he's hard to read and that makes it worse,' almost had her saying 'now who does that remind me of?' But she just nodded and kept silent, rather than poke the snake any harder. She knew they were getting close, signpost after signpost decreased the miles and impossible though it was, the tension in Harry was rising even higher. Until without any warning as they reached the brow of the hill he stopped the car and the atmosphere changed.

'Before we get there I just want to show you something,' he told her grabbing her hand and helping her up onto the grassy bank. Clover, thrift and broom, clinging to the hedgerows with a scent that took Ruth back to her childhood, but in a landscape that was so different to anything she had previously seen, filled the air.

'It's beautiful Harry,' she told him, leaning back into him, as they gazed over the moorland that he hadn't seen since he'd been the young man that had headed south.

'Why did I ever let you go Ruth?' he asked her in a voice filled with emotion.

'So that you could find me again?' she suggested.

Harry took a deep breath, a wave of nostalgia enveloping him. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like to belong and have someone who truly cared about him and over the next hilltop less than a couple of miles away, for better or worse, his father was waiting.

Was he ready for this, he had no idea?

'Better go then,' he told her, squeezing her hand.


	19. Chapter 19

Harry's father clearly loved his garden, but then Ruth already knew that. The garden at the house in London had been planted up and cared for over many years and had become the sanctuary that had brought her and Harry to the point where they were now. Appearances could be deceptive and Ruth's first impression that he'd moved into a small 'roses around the door cottage', was blown away, when having failed to get a response when he'd banged on the door, Harry had opened the side gate that lead them to the back of the house that almost doubled in size. The extensive garden was bordered by dry stone walls containing a multitude of flowers and a large vegetable patch, with a backdrop that stretched to the moorland beyond. A tabby moggie, not unlike her dear long gone Fidget lay contentedly asleep under a tree. It was heaven on earth as far as Ruth was concerned, she was captivated.

Despite the fact that Harry had never mentioned his father or this house until recently he certainly seemed to know his way around, as he fished under a plant pot and produced the key that would let them in. A note on the table said 'gone shopping, make yourselves at home,' and in Ruth's mind she was.

'What?' Harry asked her when he saw her smiling.

'It's just beautiful Harry, I just can't find the right words to explain it,' she answered him, as he started opening and closing cupboard doors in search of some teabags.

* * *

James Pearce was fiercely proud of his son he also loved him and always had, so the last thing he wanted was for Harry and this Ruth he was bringing with him to think any the less of him or that he wasn't managing on his own, because in the main he was. He got lonely from time to time, then who didn't, but unlike Harry who he knew hated gardening he loved it and come rain or shine it was where he spent his days. Why waste time doing housework when you had enough put by to let someone else do it for you? Who in his case happened to be Maisie, the wife of his nearest neighbour Reg who popped in once a week 'to give him the once over' his mates at the pub teased him. Feeding himself was a different matter entirely and he cobbled together a repetitive diet that he knew to be unhealthy except of course for the veggies and those came from his garden. Today he'd decided was going to be different, he wanted to impress. He seemed to remember that Harry liked steak so he'd taken himself down to the butchers in the village to collect his order even though he knew that he'd require help to cook it properly. Pottering back up the road, having presumed that it would be at least another couple of hours before his visitors arrived, he was surprised to see that Harry's car was already parked in the space that had once housed his. A broad if somewhat nervous smile crept across his face. If he could spot them before they spotted him then he'd have the element of surprise on his side. Quietly opening the gate, he walked as steadily as his now wobbly old legs would let him, to get his first glimpse of the woman who he guessed had captured his son's heart.

They were both standing in the kitchen and had their backs towards him so he couldn't see her face, but the first thing that stuck him was how tiny she was compared to his son. For some ridiculous reason he'd imagined that she'd have been willowy with blond hair the same as Jane and Catherine and Harry of course, although by the looks of it, his was beginning to turn grey and there was certainly a lot less of it. But Ruth's was dark brown and with the sunlight that was streaming through the window it shone. She was chattering away twenty to the dozen, now that was a pleasant change and when Harry turned to face her, he saw something in his son that he hadn't seen since the day that Catherine had been born, pure adoration. 'Bloody hell son, you have got it bad,' he muttered to himself. Just how long they intended staying with him he had no idea, Harry had never been big on information and certainly not to him, he just hoped it wasn't a flying hello and goodbye visit, because he'd been building himself up for this moment and he wasn't sure that he'd be able to hide his disappointment if Harry announced that they'd be leaving in the morning. 'Brace yourself old man,' he told himself and taking a deep breath he opened his kitchen door.

'Dad,' exclaimed Harry as he and Ruth both jumped as though they hadn't been expecting to see him, as the man shorter and thinner in stature than Harry but so like him facially, bundled into the kitchen and headed towards them.

'You must be Harry's father, I'm Ruth she interjected, walking towards him and relieving him of his shopping, when Harry appeared to have gone into lockdown. 'It's lovely here, I've been admiring your garden.'

She could have said hello, she could have said I'm very pleased to meet you, but in the absence of Harry saying anything other than Dad, she'd said the first thing that had come into her head.

'Bring us both a cuppa would you Harry, you'll find us admiring my garden,' James said to his still silent son, who watched as his father took Ruth by the hand and proceed to walk her back outside. Harry refrained from saying anything, he couldn't, as he watched Ruth's disappearing back, although she did turn round and grin at him just before she disappeared out of sight. Ten seconds it had taken her to charm the pants off his father, which on reflection was about the same length of time it had taken with him, as he put the kettle back on and pondered whether or not he was going to get a word in edgewise for the next seven days.

'I've put you both in Catherine's room,' Harry heard his father telling Ruth as he carried the tray of tea down the garden path, trying to avoid stepping on the riot of colour that filled the borders that Ruth and his father clearly admired. Flowers came from a florists as far as Harry was concerned and arrived in bunches on doorsteps for birthdays and weddings.

'Hey,' Ruth said without consideration as to how it sounded or how she was looking at Harry, when he put the tray down in front of them and moved the milk and sugar around in order to make it easier to pour the tea.

'Later,' she told him, budging up on the bench where she was sitting, when he suggested that he'd leave them to it because he ought to go and unload their luggage, which Ruth recognised as another of delaying the inevitable tactics. Her only problem was that she didn't know was why and at this stage had no idea how to find out?

'I was just telling your father how nice it is to be out of London and enjoy the peace and quiet and how much we've been looking forward to this break,' she told him, giving him one of her best 'come on Harry we've discussed this,' looks across the table, before announcing that she needed to use the bathroom and not to worry she'd find it, before leaving father and son alone.

Ruth really did need to use the bathroom but she was also determined to take her time. It wasn't her job to feed Harry his lines as to how best to break the ice, which she knew in Harry's mind had built up to astronomical levels. James as he insisted she call him had no such problem and against all the odds had told her that he'd always known what Harry did for a living. Catherine, Ruth quite rightly assumed had been his 'private little spy' he'd told her with such a twinkle in his eye and he'd filled in the rest of the gaps in Harry's life, by reading the newspapers and keeping an eye on the news. If she hadn't already guessed, Ruth would have realised that it was going to be an interesting few days.

On a split landing that went left and right at the top of the stairs she finally found the bathroom, having opened and closed several bedroom doors one of which she presumed had been set up for them. The beams in the sloping ceiling under the eaves had been skilfully adapted to contain a bath, a shower and the obvious loo and sink. For a house where an elderly gentleman who professed to live in his garden, lived alone, it was remarkably tidy and clean. Two extra sets of towels had been laid out on the bottom of their bed, indicating that James had a woman in his life, maybe a housekeeper or someone that came in once a week or on special occasions and Ruth felt pretty sure that James had been considering their visit very special. From the window at the back there was a view over the garden and before she left, Ruth couldn't help taking a peep. Whatever James had just said and she presumed it was James, it had to be, Harry was making an effort to smile.

Having closed the kitchen door behind her, she stood still for a moment and glanced down the garden. Symptomatic of someone who lived alone and rarely had anyone to talk to, James was continuing to regale Harry with stories about the village, his few friends with the emphasis on few, and how he spent his days.

He had his back to Ruth whereas Harry was facing her, and as he continued to listen to his father, Harry's eyes averted to the woman he loved.

He had never seen her in a setting such as this and everything about her mesmerised him to the point where the earth seemed to have stopped turning on its axis. As she walked back down the path to join them, he swore that if he hadn't already known that he loved her with everything he had, it would have been in those few short moments, and that if he ever stopped loving her, it would be because he'd departed this mortal coil or been blinded. Why did people think that they needed to dress to impress, it was ridiculous, Ruth never did? She was herself to the core, complicated certainly, but she was his complicated as he was hers, learnt from shared whispers and dreams over a glorious few weeks, smiling a smile that was all for him. Free from the grid, free from everything that had restrained them, in a garden full of flowers under a startling blue sky, Harry had joined Ruth in heaven.

'I was just telling Harry that it's my birthday next week and if he didn't say something soon, I might not reach it,' James told her breaking the spell, as Ruth sat down next to Harry who had discovered a way to breath again and was pouring her a cup of tea.

Harry didn't care that there were two of them teasing him and organising his life, for a brief moment he didn't even care that he was fifty four years old. As long as he had Ruth by his side he could survive anything, perhaps even the re building of a relationship with his father.

* * *

In the week that followed, both Harry and his father survived recriminations, shared memories and the odd spat as they squared up against each other. Through it all though and to an untrained eye they'd remained steadfastly father and son, resolutely side by side. But Ruth wasn't an untrained eye and there was still something that she couldn't quite define, something that worried her and required answers, especially as on the afternoon before they originally planned to leave, the answer to the _when and where do we go from here_ question, hit her with blinding clarity. They were down on the coast at Runswick Bay eating ice creams that James had insisted he buy them, walking across the beach, with James's hand linked into Harry's arm. Their roots, Harry's and hers if either of them had even had any, didn't exist anymore, so why not plant them here? The moors had houses in abundance that she and she knew Harry would be happy to live in, even if it meant that they had to wait to find the right one. There was fresh air and a never ending coastline to explore and if what James had been telling them was true, then it was where Catherine had run to for years. Harry able to continue to rebuild his relationship with his daughter as well as his father, it was almost too good to be true.

She knew that Harry would give her anything that she asked of him, the earth if he could, but she needed him to want this as much as she did. She loved Harry with a completeness that even she couldn't explain and to offer him the chance to spend the rest of their lives together in a place where he'd finally get the peace that he deserved, why not? Would he look at her as though she reverted to being his bonkers, stubborn mule? Maybe he would, but she had this incredible urge to ask him, whatever his answer.

The remainder of the day went very slowly, torturously so for Ruth who was on pins, but eventually the clock in the hall struck six and she was ready to make her move. Suggesting to Harry that she was more than happy to prepare dinner on her own and that they had plenty of time to pack later, she persuaded him wander out into the garden with a couple of beers and join his father, who'd told them he needed a breath of fresh air. Waiting until he was far enough away to be out of earshot, she took a deep breath, picked up Harry's phone and pressed dial.

Ten minutes later with the information that she needed, she promised Malcolm that they were fine and that she'd ring him over the weekend.

'It's for a little arm twisting if I need it,' she told him.


	20. Chapter 20

'Please Harry can we just leave all this until the morning I'm so tired?' was Ruth's half-hearted attempt to convince him that she was talking about their packing, rather than her now waning courage to tell him about the idea that she'd been mulling over since they'd left the beach. In what had once been their torturous _I really don't know how to put this into words_ relationship, Harry had come a country mile from just listening to the cogs that were turning in Ruth's head and knew only too well, that whatever it was that was bothering her was important.

'Come on Ruth, I know there's something that's worrying you so just tell me,' he gently urged her, as with the sound of a car in the distance, she readjusted herself against him for the umpteenth time and sighed.

He leant over her and turned on the radio, he didn't know why other than he hoped it would sooth her.

'And now for lovers everywhere,' said the faceless announcer, as strains of something that Harry vaguely recognised caused Ruth to smile into his shoulder.

'Would a cup of hot chocolate help?' And her smile immediately broadened, 'I won't be long,' earned him a kiss.

Common sense, at least for a few moments was resumed and ten minutes later Harry was sitting up in bed and leaning against the headboard with his legs stretched out in front of him, sipping his own hot chocolate in readiness for the long haul as it generally was when Ruth declared that she'd been thinking. Fortunately or not, depending from whose point of view you looked at it, the love of his life, now fiancée, had moved and was sitting with her legs crossed in front of him in what she liked to call her comfortable pyjamas but he'd secretly nicknamed The Berlin Wall. Now combine that with her gently blowing across her mug of hot chocolate in an attempt to cool it down and Harry's resolve to be patient was melting, literally. As sleep clearly wasn't an option and Ruth appeared to be still struggling to decide on the opening salvo of whatever it was that she was going to fire at him, he threw caution to the wind and decided to make the most of the opportunity by enjoying himself. _Move over darling_ would have been appropriate, but then Harry had no control over what the presenter was playing, as he edged himself slightly nearer until his toes were able to reach the inside of Ruth's legs, at which point her breath hitched. Gaining in confidence, he then proceeded to create what he knew to be electricity to all points north of Ruth's knees that would eventually render her speechless.

She knew exactly what Harry was doing, and if why and what she had on her mind could have waited until the morning, and this was in fact their last night in Yorkshire, she'd have abandoned her chat and to hell with it. Harry had in her opinion beautiful feet. In fact apart from his still somewhat frustrating nature, she thought that every inch of Harry was perfect, but this had to stop before she completely capitulated, especially as he'd just added to her torture by abandoning his hot chocolate and was licking his lips.

Closing her eyes to avoid being completely sucked in by his that were now burning with intent, she told him what she imagined Harry would consider a ridiculous suggestion, that they stay in Yorkshire for a while longer.

'Go on?' he asked her, as his toes temporarily paused on their journey towards their objective and he prayed whatever it was that she was going to say, would be quick and less painful than him having to stop.

'It's what I've always dreamt about Harry, us to be somewhere like this. It's Bronte Country, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and wall to wall - _stop it Harry,_ romance to die for and I've barely seen any of it and I bet you haven't either?'

To his regret he hadn't and wasn't likely to as Ruth continued to hang on to his foot, but he was still confused as to why she'd got herself into such a state about such a simple suggestion, until for whatever reason the penny dropped, as did his intent, and he realised where this was going.

'We have to live somewhere Harry so why not here and it would make such a difference to your Father, even you must realise that?'

There she'd said it.

The sheer passion in her voice and the fact that her chest was still heaving, was so reminiscent of a younger Ruth when he'd first met her and he didn't want to destroy that.

'Have you been talking to him, has he said something?' he asked her, hoping that it didn't sound like an accusation.

'Well not in as many words although we did have a chat the other evening,' she told him, waiting for an outburst that didn't come before continuing, 'but I didn't need to Harry, it's just so bloody obvious that he's lonely and you're his son Harry, he loves you.'

'Not a very good one Ruth, I've kept away from here for years,' gave her the opportunity that she'd been praying for.

'Only in body Harry, not in your Father's mind, look at these,' she told him, handing him the dozens of newspaper cuttings and a photograph of Harry in his army uniform, that his father had shown her when Harry had popped down to the village when they'd run out of wine.

Ruth knew that this was the moment that she had to back off and let Harry absorb what she'd told him and was looking at, so as he sat there turning pages in a scrapbook that his father had compiled over years, she crawled back up the bed until she was curled into him and waited for either an outburst or for him to relax.

'My mother was already ill when I left home Ruth, but I was young and headstrong and ignored my father's plea to stay. I wanted to join the army and well you know the rest,' he finally managed.

Ruth did. The lack of knowledge about Harry's mother had been the reason that she'd rung Malcolm, having eliminated every other possible scenario as to why Harry hadn't talked about or been to see his father in years. Since she'd opened that wretched file she'd known that Harry's entire adult life had been one long guilt trip, but _now_ she knew when it had started. This wasn't about lost colleagues, it related to someone who was very much alive and so much more than that, he was family. Besides which if his father had ever felt the need to be angry with Harry then he'd forgiven him years ago, and to Ruth who had lost her father when she'd been young that meant everything.

'I'll need you to be with me when I talk to him Ruth, or I'll struggle,' Harry eventually told her, turning back the covers so that she could get back into bed and into his arms which was where this had all started.

'I trust you're not suggesting that we live with him?' Was a question that he knew he didn't have to ask, but if he had any chance of getting to sleep then he needed to lighten the mood, and making love to Ruth suddenly felt a somewhat inappropriate route to oblivion. He just needed to hold her and to prove to her how grateful he was that she'd forced him to face up to and climb over this final hurdle. It was way past midnight and knowing that his father would be out in his garden at the crack of dawn and that Ruth had promised to cook him his breakfast, he needed to make Ruth smile before she went to sleep.

'You do realise that it gets very cold here in the Winter Ruth?' he whispered into her hair as he spooned himself in behind her and closed his eyes.

* * *

Ruth slept far better than Harry did and at six he was wide awake and listening to his father's footfall on the stairs. Like clockwork the kettle went on, his morning tea was made and then the door that took him into his beloved garden was opened and closed behind him. Harry dragged himself out of bed, went to the bathroom and then stood by the window and watched. With a cup of tea in one hand and the garden hose in the other, a routine that for his father began every single day was underway. There was something about the sheer simplicity and repetitiveness of what his father was doing that tore at Harry's heart strings, and as the tears came he reverted to the young man who had left the family home all those years ago. Tears that should have been shed when his mother had died but weren't, as he'd stood ramrod straight beside his father at her funeral. What an idiot he'd been. Ruth was right and he loved her all the more because of it. Assuming that Ruth was still asleep, he pulled on a jumper against the early morning chill and headed down the stairs, to make himself some coffee and then his peace with his father.

Ruth might have slept well, but she was painfully aware as to how difficult this moment was going to be for Harry and she'd been on high alert ever since he'd got up. She'd followed him into the kitchen and two loving arms enveloped him from behind and held him close.

'Kiss me Harry,' she told him as he turned around and made an attempt to wipe his eyes. 'No kiss me as though it's the last time,' she pushed him.

It was a kiss filled with emotion and with passion and said thank you and Ruth was as determined as he was to make it last.

'Now go out into the garden and tell your father how much you love him,' she told him, giving him a quick peck on the cheek when they finally pulled apart.

Determined to leave them to it Ruth headed back upstairs to get washed and dressed, but the temptation to peep far outweighed her self-control. Harry and his father were deep in conversation and James had stopped watering for a moment and was pointing into the distance across the moors. As she watched, Harry turned his head to look at his father and was laughing, a shared memory perhaps or something that Harry hadn't known about. Ruth was transfixed. So much for planning to leave them to it, the child in her and the desire to be part of this far outweighed the sensible part of Ruth's brain and she fairly fled down the stairs and out into the garden.

They couldn't help but hear her coming, her hair was all over the place, she was still wearing her pyjamas and she clearly hadn't even stopped to make herself a drink.

'I understand that you two are going house hunting,' James said winking at her, and Harry wondered if perhaps his father was appreciating the fairly vibrating Berlin Wall that was standing in front of them, more than he should have been.

* * *

 _Two months later with Catherine due to arrive in a week's time._

Harry and Ruth were on their way back from London having secured a buyer for Harry's house. The small amount of furniture and the bits and bobs that they'd chosen to keep, were trundling along in a small van, somewhere on the motorway and several miles behind them. Unlike the last time that they'd made this journey the atmosphere in the car was relaxed and positive and as he'd done the last time, but with a different need, Harry pulled off the road and stopped.

'Nothing ever changes here Ruth, that's why I love it so much,' he told her, with a certainty and purpose that had been missing the first time, as she stood in front of him and he wrapped his arms around her. The scenery had changed, as the year had moved from summer into early autumn, but the bones of the landscape were the same and would be for generations to come. Through adversity and pain, they'd become part of that, they belonged.

Prior to them leaving Yorkshire, they'd spent a torturous few weeks visiting every estate agent within a twenty mile radius and had failed to find anything that they liked. The houses had been either too big, too small, or in some cases were so far off the beaten track that if they'd needed help they'd have had to call CO19 Harry had muttered. Adding to the stress was that they'd planned the wedding for the late autumn and even the ever energetic Ruth was beginning to flag. It was on a Sunday, a day of rest James had told them, they were supposed to be retired so relax for heaven's sake. She and Harry were out in the garden, her relaxing her mind if not her body by weeding between James's beloved rows of vegetables and Harry wondering how much longer he could get away with before he offered to help, when James appeared with the tea.

'What about this?' he asked Harry, digging deep into his pocket and producing what was a very old and crumpled newspaper clipping.

'Be with you in a second,' Ruth called over to them, as she gathered the latest pile of weeds together and wiped her brow before heading over to the compost bin.

'She looks well at home in my garden doesn't she?' he told Harry who was gazing at Ruth, oblivious to what he'd been given. 'Listen to me you stubborn young bugger,' he continued, when Harry said 'absolutely not this was his home.'

He either went now while he was still fit enough to do it or it would be out in a box, besides which he'd done some searching of his own and there was a nice little cottage in the village close to the pub with a much smaller garden which would suit him just fine and he'd already put in an offer.

'Close your mouth son it doesn't suit you, you look like a goldfish,' he told him, when Harry failed to answer.

* * *

The purchase of James's small cottage had gone without a hitch and in the weeks that followed he'd had the time of his life, he had never been so busy. With Harry to organise and help him, they'd packed the things that he wanted and with the help of a couple of lads from the pub, moved him the full mile into his new abode. Through it all Ruth had kept her distance, giving them the time and space that they needed to continue to rebuild their relationship, and at the end of the day for the first time in years, he had a decent meal put on the table in front of him.

Catherine's first thought when her grandfather had rung her, was to assume that something dreadful had happened to her Dad. Grandad didn't ring her, she rang him as and when she could.

'Dad's what?' she'd exclaimed as though the prospect of her father getting married again was about as unlikely as the earth freezing over, until James mentioned the name Ruth.

'That name means something to you doesn't it Catherine,' he told her when she paused, 'but I'm assuming that you haven't met her, well I have and she's lovely, so you'll play nice when you meet her, won't you sweetheart?'

Catherine refrained from telling him that as far as she knew, Ruth had been in her father's words, ' lost to him and his biggest regret' which at the time had hurt her, until he'd elaborated, if only briefly, about how Ruth had sacrificed herself and her future so that he could continue to do his job.

Now standing on York station having missed her connection to Halifax because the London train had been late leaving, Catherine was to say the least frustrated and her imagination and curiosity about what Ruth would be like and the fact that her father had apparently found her again had reached fever pitch. She bit the bullet and dialled Harry.

'It's fine love, we'll find somewhere to have a cup of tea while we're waiting,' meant only one thing, that Ruth was with him and her plans to get a glimpse of her would be earlier than she'd expected. Daft really for her to be worrying when her Grandad had told her that her Dad looked happier than he'd ever seen him, in fact smitten was how he'd put it. Was that a word that people even used any more, did it happen these days in a world where a one night stand and sex was virtually on tap? Well obviously it did, but she'd never imagined smitten and her Dad as bedfellows until now. Three days her boss had told her, three days Catherine and then I expect you back. She'd already wasted a couple of hours because the wretched train had been delayed, as she'd watched the scenery outside the window changing from urban into country and glanced at her watch as she'd been doing every few minutes as she got nearer to the inevitable what? Play nice Grandad had told her, she'd try she really would, but she had one of those faces that no matter how much she tried, she couldn't disguise what she was feeling, so Ruth had better be everything that her Grandad had told her.

 _A/N I had intended this to be the final chapter but it ran on longer than I expected, so the final chapter will follow. Even with Harry's honourable nature, a 30 year guilt trip over Eleana, I just don't buy it. This story has been my attempt to find a more plausible reason._

 _Thank you to everyone who has read and posted reviews, you know how much I appreciate them._


	21. Chapter 21

They were clambering their way over the seemingly never ending pile of the yet to be opened boxes, giggling like a couple of small children on Christmas morning, in an vain attempt to restore some semblance of order, before they headed back upstairs to make Catherine's bed, in what was now the designated guest bedroom.

'Promise me that we'll never move again Ruth,' he asked her groaning and drawing the sympathy card, as she watched him lifting another far too heavy box, the newly invented and determined Harry, gaining another tick on her ever lengthening _do you realise how much I love you list._

* * *

The train was packed and in the melee of passengers that were filing towards them, Harry couldn't spot Catherine. For one awful moment he thought she'd changed her mind. She hadn't of course, but in her efforts to tidy herself up before disembarking, she'd dropped her backpack and one of the wretched straps had broken, so with a typical Pearce strop she was muttering her way towards the barrier.

'Catherine calm down,' Harry told her a bit too fiercely, when she glared at his shoes and said something that sounded like 'sodding luggage and she knew she shouldn't have bought a cheap one,' before apologising and shaking Ruth's hand.

In the four years since Ruth had sat in the meeting room and watched Harry pacing with his hand covering his face, Catherine's had barely changed. She still appeared to be the feisty young woman that had hugged her father goodbye before she'd flown back to Israel. Ruth had been there when Harry returned to the grid and she'd seen the barely disguised sense of hope in his eyes. It was during those couple of days that she'd realised that his _bluster,_ as he now called it when it came to Catherine was a smokescreen, and that Harry really loved his daughter, and with that knowledge Ruth took the initiative to move things on.

'I'm hungry I don't know about you two, but we've got at least an hour's journey ahead of us, so maybe we should find something to eat before we set off?' She suggested.

As towns go, Halifax was unusually remote from any other and within a few miles they were back out into the countryside. Armed with their lunch, which in this case was fish and chips plus hot drinks, Harry pulled in at the first picnic area that they came to. Sitting at a run of the mill picnic table in the heart of the county where her father had been born, Catherine sipped her tea and took the first real look at her father and Ruth together.

'So what have you been up to?' Harry asked her.

Very little she thought to herself, apart from working herself to a standstill, trying to hold down a demanding job which was far from newsworthy. Whereas their news was mind blowing, and for once her grandad had been less than forthcoming.

'More importantly what have you two been up to?' she asked, before her brain engaged with her mouth.

Other than suggesting that they had fish and chips and a nice good to meet you handshake, Ruth had barely said a word, and now what had she done? She'd embarrassed her.

Everything stopped including the chip that had been heading towards Harry's mouth. He turned from looking at her to looking at Ruth, with an expression that Catherine couldn't read. But there was so much more to the look than searching for an answer and he didn't need to verbalise what he was feeling. Catherine sensed a chemistry that was so strong, that for the briefest of moments that it lasted felt like an eternity, before he turned back to look at her. He was breathing heavily as was she, but she'd shut down and the apology for being so crass just wouldn't come. Besides which all could think of was 'well I am you're daughter Dad, what did you expect?'

'You're a grown up Catherine, use your imagination, we'll give you a demo later if you like,' he told her grinning, and Catherine's imagination went to places that it didn't want to.

Three days gave them barely enough time to breathe, considering the amount of catching up on news that Harry and Catherine needed to exchange, which had been added to by his relationship and pending marriage to Ruth and the reasons why the two houses had exchanged hands. James had to be included in whatever they did, if Harry hadn't suggested it then Ruth would have done. After the first evening which they'd spent amidst the chaos of Harry and Ruth's _now_ home, they made the decision to eat out. The second evening at the pub in the village, Ruth's first sortie there and only the second pub that she and Harry had ever walked into together was on quiz night. James and he and his mates were a team, which on this occasion Harry had been bullied into joining.

'Just this once,' he'd told his father, painfully aware that he'd been monopolising Catherine's time and that she and Ruth hadn't really had the opportunity to get to know one other.

'Grandad's so much happier now you're both here, as is he,' Catherine said to Ruth, nodding in the direction of Harry, who was weaving his way between the multitudes to order more drinks, as James totted up their halfway points on the score sheet. 'I know we wouldn't be sitting here this evening if it hadn't been for you and I know I'm only his daughter Ruth and it's been years since we were this close, but I do understand him,' she told her.

And you just want to be sure that I feel the same about your father Ruth thought, picking up on the unspoken question but realising that she had to be careful with her response.

'How much do you know about me Catherine? she asked her.

'Only what Dad's told me which isn't much. I know he loves you and says that your brilliant at everything you do.'

'Not when it comes to personal feelings, believe you me,' she answered, without thinking.

'Then you're marrying the right man aren't you?' was said with a glint in her eyes, so reminiscent of Harry, that Ruth found herself smiling.

'He has his moments,' and she'd been trapped.

'I bet he does,' and now Ruth really was getting out of her comfort zone and with a need to wind this up. They were in a room full of people, most of whom would know who she was, but none that she knew.

'On another day, soon I hope, when you come back to see us, we'll sit down and chat, just the three of us. But in the meantime and it's all I've got I'm afraid, there just aren't enough words for me to tell you how much I love your father.' She told Catherine.

Of course Harry knew where the Balkan States were, but then so did James which was just as well, because Harry's complete focus of attention had diverted to Ruth who was talking to Catherine, who had just taken her hand and was smiling at her.

* * *

Catherine's last day loomed large, although unlike the last time that Harry had said goodbye to his daughter, the certainty of a brighter future was the order of the day.

'The sea,' James said without hesitation, when they pulled up in front of his house and he was given a choice of where they should go.

It was mid - September so the children had gone back to school, as for the second time in as many days they pulled into a café that advertised the best fish and chips in Yorkshire. Perched perilously close the cliff edge, given the erosion that the North Sea had been wreaking on this particular stretch of coastline for years, James Pearce took stock. For almost thirty five years he'd put on a brave face and had made a life for himself, hoping but never expecting that the last few years of his life and let's face it, he might even live to be a hundred if they looked after him like this, would be as good. Harry who he loved almost more than life itself was sitting across the table in front of him, with a smile as wide as the sea outside the window on his face. Enraptured that was the word he was looking for, by whatever tale Ruth was telling them. He knew how that felt, it had been the same for him once, but until now he'd never believed it possible that his son would find that someone. Silly old sod that he knew he was, he just hoped that he'd live long enough to enjoy being part of this new family.

* * *

James wasn't the only one who had been taking stock and Harry's planning had been going on for weeks. It was a case of _if you've got it flaunt it_ and when it came to a smile, Harry's could bring a concrete statue to its knees. With no need to resort to arm twisting, not only had he ensured that their wedding day would be everything that Ruth wanted it to be, but he'd ensured that the run up would give him the opportunity to spoil her in a way he had so far failed to do.

'We've still got three days eleven hours and five minutes, do you fancy going away this weekend?' he asked her, as they lay close to sleep and Ruth said she was still worried that they didn't have enough time to get everything sorted out before Malcolm and Jo arrived. Not in church they'd both agreed on that, which only left the register office in Halifax which was without atmosphere and although Harry had said yes and smiled at the registrar, there was no way he was going to get married to Ruth in a council building, stone built or not.

Ruth was tired both emotionally and physically. She'd tweaked her back lifting one of the dozens of boxes that they'd had to unpack and as much as she hadn't wanted to, she'd had to leave the remainder of their unpacking to Harry. He'd worked wonders over the last couple of weeks and she still felt guilty, and a weekend away if it was what Harry wanted, did sound too tempting to resist.

The approach into York and more importantly the finest view of the Minster was best appreciated from the west, so Harry had planned a slight detour. For all the travelling that Ruth had done, when it came to York she was a tourist, and a bubble of excitement was slowly building inside him as to her reaction to what he had up his sleeve. First though they needed to book into their hotel.

Close to the city walls and overlooking the river, The Royal George had not only been a hotel for longer than any other in York, it had been updated to offer the soon to be married couple, the honeymoon that had been put on hold until they could justify flying over to the States. So it might be in advance of the wedding, but in order to take Ruth where he'd booked, it was a case of now or never.

'We aim to please,' Harry joked, as Ruth opened the doors that led out onto their balcony, having already explored what she'd described as wonderful, that was the suite that Harry had booked. The fact that their wardrobe contained a tux for him and a new dress for her was to remain a secret until the evening. They'd already done the walking in the streets and sitting in café's bit over lunch and during the afternoon, but he'd so far managed to steer her clear of The Minster.

'Best leave that until tomorrow, it takes hours to really appreciate it,' he'd suggested to Ruth, who by now felt as though she was walking on a different planet. What they were doing was what _normal_ people did and that was exactly what they were now, they were normal.

It was at six in the evening when he told her that they needed to get ready, because the taxi would be picking them up at seven. Now Harry in a tux with a bow tie, took Ruth way beyond her obsession to take his ties off, it took her on a pathway to _have we got time before the doors open,_ as they stood gazing at each other in the lift that was taking them down to the foyer. The one and only time that they'd been dressed as they were now, was when they'd steered clear of each other at some function or other where they'd both been teetering on the edge of Harry's something wonderful, but without the courage to take the final step. Tonight though was different. They walked, they talked and looked as though they were a couple, and there would be no one that would know them or bat an eyelid when Harry offered Ruth his arm.

When they arrived at the Minster it was already beginning to fill up, for what was to be an evening of choral music with a buffet meal at the end. It was intended as the final chapter in part one of Harry's plans, which by the smile on Ruth's face when she turned to look at him was about to score maximum. The final item on the programme was a quartet's rendition of The Prayer, written by David Foster, something that had been released when Ruth had been in America and when Harry had been at an all-time low. Listening to it on the radio had been one thing, but hearing it sung in a Cathedral was beyond beautiful, it was all consuming, as Harry inched as close to Ruth as propriety would allow, until their hands closed the void between them.

* * *

Whilst Harry and Ruth were away, enjoying the spoils of York and each other, it was a case of all hands to the pump, and James to his delight had been put in charge. Armed with a _Harry list_ , he'd rounded up a few youngsters from the scout troop and their leader, who'd rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in. Items that only came out of cupboard for the village fete, the flower show and the occasional bunfight, were transported up the hill to 'Brow Cottage'. With the promise of a donation to the scouts and an open bar and food at the pub for the remainder of the village on the actual day, the arrangements for the simple and private wedding that Ruth craved were underway. Rooms at the pub had been booked for their guests, who as far as the happy couple knew amounted to Malcolm, Jo and Catherine. All that Harry had to do, apart from part with a sizeable amount of his money, was to ensure that he and Ruth didn't arrive home until after dark, and that she was too tired to do anything other than go to bed. Easier said than done, when Ruth was urging him to drive faster, in the car that was, rather than what he'd been doing the previous evening, because she had a lot to do before they headed for Halifax the following afternoon. Luck however was on his side and apart from her threatening to leave him rather than marry him and the occasional for God's sake Harry have you gone out of your mind, when he took another detour to a pub where he'd apparently been when he was younger, because he was feeling peckish, Ruth for once was completely unaware that he was _up to his tricks_ as his mother used to say, and was having the time of his life.

'I'll make us some hot chocolate,' was always the ruse that got him what he wanted, as when they eventually arrived home, Ruth dutifully announced that she was knackered and was going to bed and that if he wanted a kiss goodnight then he'd better be quick, and yes the wedding was still on.

'I'll just ring Dad and tell him we're back,' he said to her disappearing figure.

* * *

Harry Pearce, king of all things cunning, the ultimate planner when it came to Ruth, woke up early on the morning of their wedding. Ruth was still sleeping peacefully beside him, so he eased himself out of bed, crept down the stairs and made himself a coffee. For all her brilliance, not in a million years, would Ruth be expecting to get married in the garden of their new home, but that was what he'd arranged. As quietly as he could with his heart hammering in his chest, he opened the back door and walked out into the garden. To an absolute tee, James had somehow managed to create exactly what he'd asked of him.

'Love you Dad,' he whispered.

At the pub, having confessed to Malcolm and Jo the previous evening that 'yes she was enjoying herself,' Ros was also awake and getting ready. It had been months since she'd last seen Harry and Ruth and she had no particular expectation as to how they might look when she saw them today. She didn't do lovey dovey, she never had, but something deep within her, had given her the courage to ask Malcolm whether he thought that Harry or more especially Ruth, would mind her attending their wedding. Life on the grid had settled into its post Harry era, and with Alec, Ben, Tariq and now John on board, she could almost comfortably afford a few nights away. That they missed Harry was a given, but those of them that had also known Ruth, missed _them._ The surety of purpose that had been Harry and Ruth.

* * *

It was midmorning when Malcolm's car pulled up outside Brow Cottage, to be greeted at the gate by James.

'We're in the garden,' referred to the couple in question and the registrar who Harry had persuaded to make the trip from Halifax.

The fact that the sun was shining had nothing to do with Harry, but he was prepared to take the credit, although the fact that the garden was pristine and that there was a nice spread to follow the wedding, was entirely down to his father, he told their friends.

Twenty minutes later:-

Reserved and private, to the point of it being excruciatingly painful to watch at times, Harry and Ruth's open declarations, had seen James, Jo and Catherine reaching for their hankies, Ros wondering if she'd come to the right wedding, and Malcolm needing to change his speech.

'This isn't just another wedding that we've just witnessed,' he told the small audience who were waiting to raise their glasses. 'I'm sure I speak for everyone here, when I say that our friends who we've been privileged to see getting married today, _never cease to surprise us_ _.'_

'All that I am I give to you,' Harry had said, as they'd stood facing each other with the backdrop of the moors behind them, oblivious to anything but each other.

'All of my tomorrows I'll share with you,' had been Ruth's reply.

'Wherever life's path takes you, I will follow you, 'he'd told her, with every ounce of love that he had in his eyes

And finally, 'Whenever you come home, I'll be here waiting for you,' Ruth had barely finished, before he kissed her.


End file.
